Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim hailed from different parts of the world, but their paths led them both to pursue careers in diplomacy and to the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC – where they found each other and fell in love.
Their love story was tragically cut short Wednesday evening, when a gunman fatally shot the couple as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Lischinsky grew up in Germany and moved to Israel before landing in Washington, where he’d worked at the embassy for a little over two years. Milgrim was from Kansas and moved to Washington to pursue a master’s degree. After volunteering in Israel for a year at an organization promoting peace and dialogue, she began working at the embassy in Washington shortly after the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas.
Their burgeoning relationship was well-known at the embassy, where they met, an Israeli official told CNN. They would often be seen having lunch together.
“It was the cutest love story,” the official said, adding it was “like a poster for a Netflix rom-com.”
Lischinsky, 30, had planned to propose to Milgrim, 26, in Jerusalem during an upcoming trip. The Israeli official said Milgrim hadn’t met Lischinsky’s family in Israel yet, and they planned to travel to Israel so she could meet them before they got engaged.
“A young man purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem. They were a beautiful couple,” said Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US.
Lischinsky worked in the embassy’s political section, while Milgrim helped coordinate a variety of travel to Israel, including political, religious and other groups like visitors studying climate change.
Friends and colleagues of Lischinsky and Milgrim said they were both devoted to diplomacy and the peace process in Israel. The event they were attending Wednesday was hosted by the American Jewish Committee for young professionals and was organized to discuss how multi-faith organizations can work together to bring humanitarian aid to war-torn regions like Gaza.
“Sarah was deeply involved with AJC. She’s traveled with AJC. She cared deeply for our work in the diplomatic space. And she and Yaron had a beautiful relationship,” American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch said on CNN’s “This Morning” on Thursday. “It’s a tragedy of the worst magnitude that these beautiful young people were taken from us.”
From Germany to Israel
Lischinsky dreamed of being a diplomat after studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, according to his former professor.
“Yaron was an outstanding student and a wonderful person,” said Nissim Otmazgin, the Dean of Humanities at the university. “His dream was to become a diplomat. He was actually just starting his new career as a diplomat, he was murdered.”
Otmazgin, who taught Lischinsky in three different courses related to Japanese studies, said he was “an excellent student” and “very much dedicated.” Otmazgin remembers him getting a perfect score in an honors seminar, a sign of how hard he worked. He graduated with a degree in International Relations and Asian Studies.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told lawmakers in the Bundestag Thursday that Lischinsky held both German and Israeli nationality. Lischinsky had a Christian mother and Jewish father, according to the Israeli official.
Otmazgin said Lischinsky truly “became an Israeli” after moving from Germany.
“In many ways, I think for me he symbolizes the hope of Israel,” Otmazgin said. “Young people — idealistic — that are going abroad, studying about different cultures, and trying to do good for their country. So in this sense, it is not only a personal tragedy — it’s also kind of a public tragedy.”
“He is the best that Israel can offer,” Otmazgin added.
Lischinsky’s high school physical education teacher, Yoram Menachem, said that he attended Mae Boyar High School in Jerusalem after he and his family immigrated to Israel when he was a teenager. Menachem said Lischinsky was a man of few words at the time, as he was not yet comfortable with the Hebrew language, but that his personality already stood out.
“I remember his character was very special,” Menachem said. “Yaron was a wonderful student.”
Jakub Klepek, a friend of Lischinsky’s from Reichman University in Israel, described him as a “man of purpose.”
“He loved his job and his girlfriend — soon to-be-fiancée. He believed deeply in the impact of the Abraham Accords and was committed to seeking peace in the Middle East,” Klepek said. “We will honor their memory by continuing to spread the message of peace, understanding, and mutual respect that Yaron championed until his very last day.”
Klepek said Lischinsky was a “respectful and kind person” who loved books and working in diplomacy.
“We would sit in various coffee shops around Jerusalem, discussing religion, politics and books,” Klepek told CNN in a message. “We often exchanged book titles and then jokingly complained about not being able to start new ones because of our university reading lists.”
The German-Israeli Society, an organization in Germany that promotes relations with Israel, said Lischinsky was a founding member of its sister organization, which “connects young Israelis and Germans and initiates joint projects.”
The Society described Lischinsky in a statement as “an incredibly warm, intelligent, calm and interested person.” Lischinsky had a passion for photography, and “focused his lens on the special corners and details that others often missed.”
“She came here to promote peace”
Milgrim, who grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, was active in the Jewish community at the University of Kansas, where she served on the board of the university’s Hillel, a Jewish student organization.
She experienced antisemitism at a young age, when swastikas were graffitied onto a building at her high school in 2017. “It’s so ignorant that you would bring up a symbol like that, that would bring so much pain to people,” she told local TV station KSHB.
Ethan Helfand, executive director at the University of Kansas Hillel, said she prioritized making the betterment of the Jewish community a part of her life.
“A former staff member of KU Hillel remarked to me that he vividly remembered a conversation about environmentalism and how she wanted to spend part of her life working on environmentalism in Israel, that that was a cause that truly resonated with her,” Helfand said. “And then she did that. She went and spent time in Israel.”
After college, Milgrim moved to Washington to attend American University, where she graduated with a master’s degree in international affairs and a degree in natural resources and sustainable development jointly offered by American and the University for Peace.
Through her studies, she took a yearlong volunteer position in Israel as an intern at Tech2Peace, an organization that promotes dialogue and peace initiatives in the tech industry in Israel.
Her co-workers said that she embraced the organization’s mission, where Israelis and Palestinians come together to discuss tech but also to talk about the conflict. After her year of volunteering, she returned to write her master’s project about the program and the people who participate in it.
“She was very young, very curious to learn about the conflict and look for solutions,” said Tech2Peace CEO Esti Rozenfeld. “That was her spirit. She came here to promote peace, to promote the effort in this beloved land for dialogue, for partnership, for commitment.”
Adnan Jaber and Michal Greenfield, a couple who worked with Milgrim at Tech2Peace, say they remember Milgrim’s empathy and passion about the organization’s mission. Jaber, a Palestinian-Israeli from Jerusalem, recalled hiking with her as part of the seminars and sitting for “really hard conversations between Palestinians and Israelis.”
“I really remember her brightness. Not just her hair that was red and her eyes that were blue, but the curiosity she brought into the work and the eagerness she had to help however she could,” said Greenfield, who is Jewish-American and Israeli.
“I remember Sarah, whoever she would sit next to — they would talk endlessly,” added Greenfield. “She really looked at people when she talked to them. She gave them all of her attention, and I think that that’s part of … why so many of us also remember her. She didn’t just come and do work and leave, she came to be a part of the community.”
Milgrim wrote on her LinkedIn that working at Tech2Peace was a “life changing professional experience.”
When she returned to Washington, Milgrim got a job at the Israeli embassy, not long after the October 7 attacks.
Meredith Jacobs, the CEO of Jewish Women International, wrote in an email to her organization’s members Thursday she met Milgrim because her role at the embassy included outreach to Jewish organizations. Jacobs said that Milgrim shared she had lost friends when she joined the embassy over her support of Israel.
“I looked at the beautiful young woman sitting across the table from me. I encouraged her to join JWI’s Young Women’s Impact Network — not because I was trying to grow our membership, but because I wanted to help her find community with other bright, young, ambitious women who also cared deeply about Israel,” Jacobs wrote.
“I find some comfort that in the 19 months since our coffee, Sarah found friends and community,” she added. “Even more, she found love. The world has lost the lives she and Yaron would have lived and the difference I know they would have made.”
CNN’s Lauren Izso, Michael Schwartz, Benjamin Brown, Lex Harvey, Dana Bash, Shania Shelton, Diego Mendoza, Eugenia Yosef and Jessie Yeung and Stephanie Halasz contributed.
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