In a world flooded with empty slogans and online posturing, Sarah Milgrim was something far rarer: a quiet peace builder. She didn’t seek headlines. She sought dialogue. Just a few years out of college, she was already known for her engagement with organizations that brought together Christians and Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians. Her final master’s degree research project was on the role of cross-cultural friendships in peace-building.
It was exactly that interest that allowed our paths to first cross in Morocco, less than one year ago, and in New York City just last month.
This week those who knew Sarah as I did learned with horror that she was murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, alongside her partner, Yaron Lischinsky, in what authorities have called a politically motivated, antisemitic attack. The couple were shot again and again as they left an interfaith event about “turning pain into purpose” — a night dedicated to humanitarian collaboration, including efforts to aid civilians in Gaza. The shooter allegedly shouted “Free Palestine.” The irony of that moment is so sharp, it almost feels scripted.
But that is not the memory I want to hold.
Sarah’s legacy must not be co-opted, not by the person who shot her, and not by those who now wish to brand her with their politics or make her a poster child for a cause. Sarah’s name should not become a pawn, nor a rallying cry, for those who seek to weaponize her death for political gain on either side of this conflict.
The Sarah I knew was a practitioner of what might be called peace diplomacy.
I met Sarah on an interfaith trip to Morocco, about 9 months ago, during a fellowship organized by the American Jewish Committee and the Mimouna Association, an organization that preserves Moroccan Jewish heritage and history. Our program brought together Jews and Muslims from across the United States, Israel, France and Morocco. It was her first visit to my country. Sarah was an American Jew and I am a French-Moroccan researcher. I’m Muslim, and my work focuses on diplomacy and peace-building in the Middle East, particularly initiatives such as the Abraham Accords, as well as the everyday people-to-people relations that can make peace a reality. From the beginning of our fellowship, it was clear that Sarah believed in the possibility of a different Middle East, one built on coexistence, not conflict.
My first impression of her was how moved she was by the beauty of the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. There she learned about Morocco’s longstanding tradition of coexistence and the deep roots of Abrahamic dialogue that have long nurtured Jewish-Muslim friendships in the country. Out of respect for the local customs and the sacredness of the site, Sarah asked a companion to photograph her outside the mosque, wearing a veil. In that moment, I saw her as the embodiment of a promise — one offered by sincere, mutual respect.
Sarah, I came to learn on that trip, was more than just a staffer at the Israeli Embassy.She had spent months working on behalf of women who were victims of sexual assault during the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. She had also worked with Arab and Palestinian communities through Tech2Peace, a joint Israeli-Palestinian NGO, which offers Palestinians access to high tech, entrepreneurship and new opportunities. Two years ago, she spent weeks following the journey of 12 Israeli and Palestinian participants in a seminar hosted by the organization, held at the planned Jewish-Palestinian village in the center of Israel, Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam.
I learned Sarah was committed to a concept known as the “third narrative.” It’s a vision that seeks to rise above the noise of vengeance and violence by focusing instead on shared humanity and the mutual right to dignity, safety and peace for Jews and Muslims. This effort is about more than dialogue; it’s a deliberate stand against polarization. Sarah believed in creating a space for people to look for solutions.
Sarah’s life was taken by a man whose apparent radicalism attempted to erase her humanity and all that she stood for. The alleged killer, Elias Rodriguez, reportedly told police officers, “I did it for Gaza,” after shooting Sarah, the Jewish girl from Kansas who wanted a Middle East in which Palestinians and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, can live in dignity next to the Jewish people of Israel.
In his bullets, the killer could not have seen all that Sarah was, all that she believed in. Her Jewish identity was flattened into a target. In her murder he picked exactly the sort of person who might have altered the future.
But just as the extremist misunderstood Sarah, so too do many of those who profess to weep for her loss. Those who mourn Sarah should reflect on her ideals, learn from her life’s work and aim as she did on creating the fragile groundwork for Middle East peace. It was a future she helped prepare for, one conversation, one relationship at a time.
The Sarah I engaged with over this past year never sought to be a hero. She chose to place herself in a conflict from which she could easily have walked away. If we want to honor Sarah Milgrim, we cannot let her become another symbol. We must remember her as she was: hopeful, committed, unbroken by what she witnessed in the violence and tragedies of the region. Any political exploitation of Sarah’s murder will only be to lose her, again and again.
Yasmina Asrarguis is a French-Moroccan researcher at Sorbonne University focused on the Abraham Accords and the geopolitical dynamics of Israeli-Arab relations.
Source photographs by Kevin Dietsch and Space Frontiers via Getty Images.
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