New York City officials and religious leaders gathered at an interfaith vigil on Thursday afternoon in Lower Manhattan to mourn Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, Israeli embassy staffers who were murdered after leaving an American Jewish Committee event on Wednesday night at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.
“This violence is exactly what they mean when you hear the words, ‘globalize the intifada,’” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at the memorial at the Center for Jewish History.
“It is the actual plan out of these comments. Violence is something that is unacceptable and not tolerated, and that is what we mean when we say antisemitic propaganda is masquerading as activism,” the mayor said. “Let’s call this what it is, a depraved act of terrorism.”
There are no known threats to Jewish institutions in the city, but the New York City Police Department is “surging counterterrorism officers in critical response commands out of an overabundance of caution,” the mayor said.
The city is also “deploying heavy weapons teams to Jewish cultural institutions and houses of worship, and enhancing coverage to Israeli diplomatic facilities,” as it has done “periodically” after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, he added.
“The last year and a half, we watched hate bleed out onto our streets, onto our college campuses, and now, at our cultural events,” Adams told attendees. “People have glorified terrorists and organizations have called for violence against Jews, and have called for death to America, to Israel and to the people of Israel.”
Al Sharpton, an activist and religious leader who in 2019 partially acknowledged his role in inciting the antisemitic riots in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, in 1991, said at the vigil that black leaders must speak out about rising Jew-hatred and stand with the Jewish community.
If there had been an attack at the Schomburg Library, a historic city library dedicated to studying black culture, “and it was two young blacks, I would have expected to see Jewish leadership stand with us,” Sharpton said.
“It happened at the site of a Jewish Museum in Washington. Two people, innocent people, lost their lives,” he said. “They should expect that we’ll be here.”
One can’t be a civil-rights activist or leader “if you’re only for your own civil rights, and you cannot be a faith leader if you only stand up for people in your own faith,” Sharpton said.
Hindy Poupko, senior vice president of community strategy and external relations at the UJA-Federation of New York, said at the event that the attack came after months of rising Jew-hatred and, sadly, isn’t a surprise to the Jewish community.
“As the mayor said, after 19 months of violence and hateful rhetoric directed at Jews and the State of Israel, violence was inevitable,” she told attendees. “Our heart breaks for them, their lives lost, their futures lost and our hearts break for their families.”
“In Washington, in New York and wherever Jews gather, we remain resolute in our commitment to living our lives as proud Jews,” she said.
Mohammad Razvi, CEO of the Council of People’s Organization, an umbrella group of more than 70 Muslim organizations, said at the event it is important for faith communities in New York City to unite against hate.
“In the Quran, it’s written that if you take one innocent life, it’s as if you have taken the life of all mankind,” he said. “This is true to all Muslims, and this heinous act has really hurt so much.” (The Talmud has a similar statement.)
Razvi offered condolences to the families of the two victims. “Hate is something that is perpetuated and taught,” he said. “A child is not born to hate. That’s something you pick up at a dinner table.”
He added that “any time this happens, we have to stand together, and we have to show others that this is what New York is about.”
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