Who were the Israeli Embassy staffers shot dead days before getting engaged?

They were colleagues, and they were a couple, days away from a marriage proposal.

But the interwoven lives of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were brutally cut short Wednesday evening, when the two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot while leaving a young diplomats' reception at the Capital Jewish Museum. The suspect shouted "Free Palestine" as he was being arrested, a witness said.

Milgrim, an American from Kansas, had devoted her burgeoning career to bringing people together to look for ways to promote peace and combat climate change, those who knew her say.

Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen who spent some of his childhood in Germany, had a deep attachment to the Jewish state and an interest in bridging cultural and religious divides.

He had bought an engagement ring and was just days away from proposing to Milgrim on a planned trip to Jerusalem, according to Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter.

“A young couple with a bright future, planning their life together,” said Ron Prosor, a veteran Israeli diplomat who knew Lischinsky.

Yaron Lischinsky

Lischinsky grew up partly in the German city of Nuremberg and moved to Israel at 16. A Christian, he served in the Israeli military “and chose to dedicate his life to the state of Israel," said Prosor, who taught Lischinsky at Israel's Reichman University. Lischinsky earned a master’s degree in government, diplomacy and strategy there.

“He embodied the Judeo-Christian values and set an example for young people worldwide,” Prosor said on X.

Lischinsky helped found the Israeli-German Society's youth forum, according to its counterpart in Germany, and took a job at the Israeli Embassy in Washington in 2022.

There, he worked as a research assistant whose responsibilities included keeping track of important events and trends in the Middle East and North Africa, his LinkedIn profile said.

He said he advocated for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and was an “ardent believer” in deepening Israel’s ties with the Arab world through the U.S.-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.

On Instagram, his bio included a yellow ribbon symbolizing the struggle to free the hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip.

Milgrim’s Instagram bio also had a yellow ribbon, as well as a passage, in Hebrew, from the biblical Book of Deuteronomy: “Justice, justice you shall pursue.”

Sarah Milgrim

Milgrim, who hailed from Overland Park, Kansas, was an American citizen, according to Israel's former ambassador to the U.S., Mike Herzog. She was building a career that blended her interests in peace-building, religion and the environment.

“She believed in connections, in building community and bringing people together,” said Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life at the University of Kansas, where Milgrim earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies in 2021.

He said she loved asking questions, enjoyed insightful conversations and “was filled with so much love.”

Milgrim had worked at at a Tel Aviv-based organization centered on technology training, entrepreneurial and conflict dialogue for young Palestinians and Israelis, according to her LinkedIn profile. It said she had been trained in religious engagement and peacebuilding by the United States Institute of Peace, an organization that promotes conflict resolution and was created by the U.S. Congress.

After earning a master’s degree in international affairs from American University in 2023, she went to work at the Israeli Embassy, where her job involved organizing events and missions to Israel.

Among them was an Earth Day gathering last month that highlighted Israeli companies and nonprofit groups doing climate work, recalled attendee Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a philanthropist and a Maryland Commission on Climate Change member. She said she and Milgrim brainstormed by phone just this past week about ways to connect Israeli climate innovators with journalists.

“She was exceptionally talented, exceptionally passionate, really kind, extremely well-organized and very effective. And she’s the kind of young leader that, really, this nation and the world needs,” Laszlo Mizrahi said. “She wanted to create a better future for everyone.”

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Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Contributing were Geir Moulson in Berlin; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv; Jennifer Peltz in New York; Sarah Brumfeld in Cockeysville, Maryland; Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire.