Elias Rodriguez is the newest face of antisemitic venom, joining a long list of extremists hostile to Jews.
On May 21, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., he fatally shot Yaron Lischinsky, a 30-year-old Israeli, and his fiancé, Sarah Milgrim, 26, an American from Kansas.
Employed by Israel’s embassy, they had just attended a reception for young diplomats hosted by the American Jewish Committee when they were gunned down. As they left the building, Rodriques, 31, approached and killed them in cold blood at close range.
A pro-Palestinian activist, he presumably did not know that the victims worked at the Israeli embassy. They were complete strangers to him. But it was not by chance that he decided to go to the Capital Jewish Museum.
He intended to kill Jews, regardless of their occupation or place of birth. His murderous rampage is nothing less than a despicable act of terrorism and an antisemitic crime. He has been charged with first-degree murder.
U.S. President Donald Trump condemned it as a crime motivated by antisemitism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “This was a brazen act of cowardly, antisemitic violence.” The director of the FBI, Kash Patel, said that “targeted antisemitic violence is an attack on our core values and will be met with the full weight of federal law enforcement.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shocked by the “horrifying antisemitic murder,” said that security will be stepped up at Israeli embassies around the world.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a post on X, put it succinctly: “This was a targeted attack against the Jewish community — a violent act of antisemitism. This hate is intolerable, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. We cannot look away from the power of antisemitism and its radicalization.”
Carney is absolutely correct.
There has been a wave of global antisemitism since October 7, 2023, the day Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and killed roughly 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 Israelis and foreigners. In the wake of that atrocity, the worst single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, triggering the fifth and most destructive Israel-Hamas war since 2008.
Since then, a wave of pro-Palestinian protests has erupted in the United States. While most have been non-violent, the demonstrations, particularly on university campuses, have been disruptive. These protesters have hailed Hamas as a liberation organization, glorified violence, and intimidated many Jewish students, creating an intolerable atmosphere on campus.
In some instances, protesters have been accused of inciting violence against Jews, though they claim that such accusations are solely intended to suppress free speech and undermine support for the Palestinian cause.
A report issued by a Harvard University task force recently attests to the emergence of antisemitism among some Palestinian activists. Reports suggest that this noxious strain of racial hatred has infected academic programs, student course work, the hiring of teaching staff, and, in general, the everyday rhythms of life on campus.
This phenomenon has spread to scores of American universities and doubtless influenced Rodriques, a resident of Chicago. After he was arrested, he shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” the code words for Israel’s elimination as a sovereign Jewish state.
According to a court document filed on May 22, Rodriguez told police on the scene that he was the shooter. “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
Once affiliated with a far-left group in Chicago know as the Party for Socialism and Liberation, he was also a member of ANSWER, an acronym for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, which has organized demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians.
Rodriquez, in a 900-word online statement, incriminated himself as a radical who transitioned from anti-Zionism to antisemitism. He defended “the morality of armed demonstration” as a response to Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, calling it “the only sane thing to do.”
He may have been under the influence of Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. Air Force serviceman who opposed Israel’s just military offensive in Gaza, and who died after setting himself alight outside the Israeli embassy in February 2024 in protest over the war. Rodriquez hailed him as a martyr who “sacrificed” himself in the hope of “stopping the massacre.”
In his post, Rodriquez expressed dissatisfaction with America’s support of Israel: “Israelis themselves boast about their own shock at the free hand the Americans have given them to exterminate the Palestinians. Public opinion has shifted against the genocidal apartheid state, and the American government has simply shrugged, they’ll do without public opinion then, criminalize it where they can, suffocate it with bland reassurances that they’re doing all they can to restrain Israel …”
Surveys indeed indicate that younger Americans are increasingly supportive of the Palestinian cause. One can only hope that their pro-Palestinian views will not spill into violent antisemitism, an outright hate crime.
Judging by reports, Rodriquez is guilty as charged of that crime. Armed with a gun, he went to the Capital Jewish Museum with the intention of killing Jews in the name of the Palestinian national moment. But in revealing himself as a pogromist, he has ironically besmirched and stained that movement.
Palestinians should denounce Rodriquez and distance themselves from him, but one suspects they will remain deafeningly silent.