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ANTISEMITISM - Tuesday’s brutal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., wasn’t just a horrific act of targeted violence—it was a symptom of a deeper, festering illness in our society. Antisemitism is not only alive in America; it is emboldened, growing, and increasingly deadly.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were young, engaged in diplomacy, and had just attended a humanitarian event. They were gunned down as they left the venue. Their attacker, reportedly shouting “Free Palestine” and linked to a manifesto filled with anti-Israel vitriol, was apprehended at the scene. The FBI is investigating the murders as a hate crime. They shouldn't need to look far.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. It was the latest chapter in a long, painful story that too many have tried to downplay or ignore.
Just last year, Paul Kessler, a Jewish man in California, died after being assaulted at a protest in Thousand Oaks. Earlier this spring, tensions in Brooklyn boiled over during a visit by Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Jewish bystanders were violently attacked. In both cases, responses were muted, qualified, or buried under the weight of political caution.
And yet, the numbers speak louder than politics. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 audit of antisemitic incidents recorded a staggering increase in attacks, harassment, and vandalism. Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centers have had to double their security. Many Jewish Americans now live with the chilling awareness that a kippah, a mezuzah, or an Israeli flag might make them a target.
What we are seeing is not protest—it’s persecution.
Let’s be clear: the right to criticize the policies of any government, including Israel’s, must be protected. But when that criticism is laced with ancient tropes, when it turns violent, or when it singles out Jewish people and institutions in the diaspora, it stops being political and starts being hateful.
What makes Tuesday’s attack so harrowing is not just its brutality, but its predictability. In a climate where antisemitic rhetoric is allowed to fester unchecked online, where conspiracy theories about Jewish “influence” go viral, and where hate speech masquerades as activism, we shouldn’t be surprised when someone decides to act on it.
Yes, free speech matters. But so does moral clarity.
Too many leaders, especially on the progressive left, have been slow—or worse, silent—when antisemitism rears its head. Some are quick to issue statements against Islamophobia or racism, but when a Jewish community is targeted, the words come late, if at all. That double standard must end.
Condemnation must be swift, unequivocal, and bipartisan. From the halls of Congress to city councils and campuses, we need to stop treating antisemitism as a niche issue and start recognizing it for what it is: a frontline threat to pluralism, democracy, and the basic safety of American Jews.
President Donald Trump condemned the killings as "based obviously on antisemitism" and emphasized that "hatred and radicalism have no place in the USA".
In the wake of this incident, the Trump administration has reiterated its commitment to combating antisemitism. Earlier this year, President Trump signed Executive Order 14188, titled "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism," which mandates federal agencies to utilize all available legal tools to address antisemitic harassment and violence. This order expands upon a previous 2019 directive and specifically targets antisemitism in educational settings, directing agencies to monitor and report activities related to antisemitism, especially in the context of campus protests following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
We need prosecution. We need education. We need tech companies to take responsibility for the hate they platform. We need community leaders willing to speak up even when it’s inconvenient.
And we need solidarity—across faiths, ideologies, and identities. Because this is not just about Jewish safety. It’s about what kind of country we want to live in.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim should still be alive. Their murders should not be just another entry in the ADL’s annual report. They should be a wake-up call.
The question is whether we’re willing to wake up.
(This article was prepared by CityWatch staff.)
