"The best revenge is not to resemble your enemies"

 New York Times
Tuesday, May 27, 2025, p. A1, A6

Embassy Aide Quietly Buried Back in Israel

By ISABEL KERSHNER
BEIT ZAYIT, Israel - 

Weeks before, Yaron Lischinsky had made plans to travel to Israel on Sunday with his partner, Sarah Milgrim. He wanted to introduce her to his family for the first time and, relatives said, propose to her. 

Instead, Mr. Lischinsky, 30, was laid to rest on Sunday at sunset, in a small cemetery a short walk from his family home in the village of Beit Zayit, nestled in the wooded hills west of Jerusalem.

Mr. Lischinsky and Ms. Milgrim, 26, were gunned down on Wednesday night outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington as they left a reception for young professionals and diplomats hosted by the American Jewish Committee.

The gunman, identified by the police as Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, cried out, "Free, free Palestine!" as he was being apprehended - a call heard in protests around the world against Israel and its war in Gaza, which was ignited by the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Mr. Rodriguez has been charged with the murder of foreign officials, first-degree murder and other crimes. The U.S. authorities said they would also be investigating the attack as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism.

. . . 

Mr. Lischinsky came from a culturally mixed background with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and was a practicing Christian, according to brother, Hanan Lischinsky, 32

People who had worked with Mr. Lischinsky in the embassy said that over his last two years there, he had identified as Jewish.

The funeral service blended religious traditions and elements. A leader of the Hebrew-speaking King of Kings congregation of Jerusalem - part of a Messianic community that says its mission is to reveal the true face of Jesus to Israel - officiated alongside representatives of the Orthodox Jewish burial society.

"The best revenge is not to resemble your enemies," one of Mr. Lischinsky's family members, who the family asked not to be identified, said during the eulogies. "I choose love and not hate."

"The terrorist who killed my brother," the family member added, "I want to tell him that I love him, that I forgive him, and already I am not angry with him. If one day I see him I will give him a big hug, and I will tell him what a human Yaron was, and I will tell the terrorist how much God loves him, and that I am full of love toward him."