KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Hundreds of somber faces lined a room of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City Thursday evening to mourn a 26-year-old Johnson County woman and her boyfriend who were fatally shot outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

“It’s one thing to see the images on the news, or hear stories from across the globe. This was personal. Sarah was ours,” President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City Jay Lewis said.

Sarah Lynn Milgrim and her boyfriend, 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky, were staff members at the Israeli Embassy.

The couple, who planned on getting engaged soon, Milgrim’s father, Robert Milgrim, told The Kansas City Star, were leaving an event Wednesday evening when 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, of Chicago, allegedly opened fire.

After being taken into custody by a security guard, Rodriguez allegedly chanted, “Free Palestine, free Palestine,” Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters.

Milgrim was from Johnson County and graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 2017. She graduated from the University of Kansas in 2021 with a degree in environmental science. She met Rabbi Neil Schuster while at college.

“Going to sleep to the news was bad enough, but waking up to the particulars of it, it’s difficult to just even know where to put it, what to do with it,” Schuster said.

Milgrim was part of Kansas University Hillel, a Jewish organization at the university. Schuster was the senior Jewish educator of the group, while Milgrim served on the board of directors.

The pair took two trips to Israel together and participated in campus Judaism events, Schuster said.

“Because she was just a beautiful soul, and there was so much there inside of her with a light, that when you figured out where the switch was, it just glowed,” Schuster said.

Schuster left the crowd with the message that “love is a powerful thing.”

“But we need more than just being together. We need to give ourselves permission to feel the love that’s there, to feel the love that we feel toward each other, toward the people in this room,” Schuster said.

He said those in the room should lean on one another.

“The love of friendship is one of the most powerful kinds of love,” Schuster said.

Amanda Birger met Milgrim when the pair attended KU together.

“She had a lot of passions, and she was involved in so many activities, in addition to her always completely full course load. But she never would call herself ‘spread too thin,’ she always seemed to have the capacity to take on everything that life threw at her, and she still sought out more,” Birger said.

Birger described Milgrim as a “fiercely loyal friend” with strong Jewish values and a love for the environment and animals. Milgrim was the “ultimate peacemaker,” Birger said.

“She was very tactful about how she used her voice, which sometimes came off as cautious, but when it looked like she wasn’t speaking up, it’s because she was trying to keep the peace,” Birger said.

Milgrim’s job at the Israeli Embassy was hard, Birger said, but was made easier by her boyfriend’s presence and a sense that she was making a difference.

“Even though she was faced with ignorant people and awful images and really difficult work, she stayed to help innocent people and to help our community,” Birger said.

Birger remembers Milgrim as a woman who “stood proudly” in her faith.

“She made me want to be more Jewish,” Birger said. “I came to Hillel looking for friends, but meeting Sarah showed me how someone my age, who was smart and funny and kind, could live a joyful Jewish life while also doing everything else she wanted.”

Birger encouraged those in the room to stand proudly in their faith, “and don’t let hateful ignorance reduce your Jewish life.”

(The Star’s Eric Adler and Nathan Pilling contributed reporting to this story.)

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