Glimmers of Hope

May 22, 2025 Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief

Last May, Israel embassy workers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were killed by a gunman as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, I made a stranger cry.

Well, not a complete, random stranger, and not on purpose. This was someone I’ve spoken to over the phone and via email several times over the past couple of years. I won’t identify her or the organization she represents because I don’t want to embarrass her in any way.

Let me get this out of the way: the woman is not Jewish. Nor does she work for a Jewish organization. Just a nice, middle-aged, non-Jewish woman who lives in this area.

We had a scheduled Zoom meeting yesterday morning to discuss a future article.

“How are you doing this morning?” she asked cheerfully.

“Oh, I’ve been better,” I admitted. “It’s not an easy morning to be in the Jewish community.” She looked back quizzically and asked what was wrong.

I asked if she’d heard any morning news, and she shook her head no.

“Well, two beautiful young people who worked at the Israeli Embassy in D.C. were killed last night,” I said. “They were about to get engaged and were attending a community event in the District, and a guy came up and just shot them, and later chanted, ‘Free, free Palestine!’ They were leaving an event billed as a discussion of the Gaza war to ‘turn pain into purpose.'”

The woman listened intently as I offered details of the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, of their backgrounds and lives and dreams for peace for all people in the Middle East.

While I was talking, I saw the woman take off her glasses and rub her eyes. At first, I thought nothing of it. Maybe she was just sleepy.

In the midst of my obliviousness, I suddenly realized that the woman was tearing up. In fact, she reached over the keyboard to grab a couple of tissues to wipe her eyes.

She apologized for the tears and confessed that she’s no Middle East expert or policy wonk. But hearing about the lives of a young couple with so much to live for and contribute to the world just snuffed out in a matter of minutes was too much for her to bear.

I’m compelled to share this exchange because in our grief and sense of loss at a horrific moment like this, we often let anger take over our emotions. We get fixated on the murderer and his or her misguided notions that manifested into hatred and destruction, and the external circumstances that led to this kind of insanity.

One of my Facebook “friends” posted in reaction to these senseless killings, “Murdering people doesn’t help.”

Amen to that.

I hear people from across the political spectrum speak cavalierly all the time about resorting to violence. Sometimes they’re joking, sometimes they’re not.

It’s almost as if we think if you simply knock off someone – a politician, a community leader, a health insurer executive – all of our problems, squabbles and disagreements will vanish. Only hours after Wednesday night’s murders, some sick people took to social media to rejoice. Others spewed outrageous conspiracy theories

When did our society turn into “Goodfellas”?

That’s a pretty simplistic way of looking at life and its challenges. The murderer of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim might think he was taking a bold and courageous stand against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. But in reality, all he did was spread more pain and suffering and hatred while making the prospect for peace a more fleeting aspiration.

The woman whom I made cry had no need to apologize for her tears. I’m grateful for them, because they give me a glimmer of optimism at a time when hope seems to be a commodity in short supply. They were glimmers of hope, as were Yaron and Sarah.

She reminded me that there’s still some semblance of humanity out there among human beings.