The Fire This Time
As Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, lay on a Washington DC sidewalk outside the Jewish Museum, shot in the back, grievously and perhaps mortally wounded, she began instinctively to crawl away from her assailant. He was Elias Rodriguez, 31, an anti-Zionist and antisemite of some years vintage. He walked up to her as she struggled and bled and coldly pumped several more bullets into her and the companion lying on the ground beside her, her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky, 30. Police collected twenty-one shell casings from the ground on May 21.
Nothing about the shootings suggested agitated, deranged behavior. It was more like a calculated mob execution, the repeated firing sending an unambiguous message of hate. In yet another gesture of cold calculation, perhaps learned from the movies, Rodriguez quickly discarded his gun. Then, as witnesses reported, he entered the museum, by then disoriented and in shock. He had killed, presumably for the first time. But by the time police arrived he has recovered some self-possession, readily confessing the crime and calling out “I did it for Palestine; I did it for Gaza” as they led him away. Truly dedicated politics requires proudly taking responsibility for your actions. Whether Rodriguez knew that Sarah and Yaron were embassy employees, is unclear, but he knew they were likely Jews and exiting an official function.
Like most Zionist Jews, I feel personally bound up in these events. The deluge of hate that has overwhelmed us since October 2023 had taken its first lives on US soil. The tiresome recitation of the “imminent violence” restraints on anti-Zionist exhortation was revealed in its inadequacy. When self-righteous calls for violence against Jews or Israelis echo from campus to campus and city to city, some will heed the message.
But I also feel entangled in yet another way. Rodriguez is a 2018 graduate of the University of Illinois Chicago, an English major. I taught for over 30 years in the English department at Chicago’s sister campus, the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign. I have been among those aware that our twin programs have become more radically anti-Zionist over a period of years. I have been among those who have repeatedly warned the campus and the university administrations that allowing hatred to proceed unremarked, unchallenged, and uncondemned would have consequences. Our warnings have been met by courteous thanks and complete inaction.
Now we have inherited the fire. Next time it may be worse, the link between campus radicalization and violence more precise. But we already have to take on the shame of this unwelcome connection.
By the time Rodriguez enrolled at the UI Chicago, the forces of radical anti-Zionism were already well established on campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the most vehemently antisemitic of national student groups had been active for years. They established their Twitter account in 2011. Their Instagram and Facebook pages were active by 2015.
In 2017 SJP was apparently among those who distributed virulently antisemitic fliers on campus. One flier was framed by a declaration in capital letters, separated by ellipses: ENDING WHITE PRIVILEGE … INTERSECTS ENDING JEWISH PRIVELEGE. “If Jewish Americans make up 2% of the population, why do they get a special privilege when it comes to top universities?” Both rightwing and leftwing groups helped share the fliers.
The fliers were widely debated on campus. Rodriguez could hardly have missed the debate. Exactly what role the Chicago campus atmosphere played in installing his hostility is unclear. But since then, and especially since 2021 and still more since 2023, matters have gotten worse. Academic departments on both campuses now declare themselves opposed to Israel’s very existence. Anti-Zionist faculty in several disciplines believe opposition to Israel and the campus allies of the Jewish state alike is the only morally upright politics to adopt. Some faculty, including those aligned with Faculty for Justice in Palestine, insist they shouldn’t serve on committees with Zionist colleagues. There will be more children of Elias Rodriguez among us.
Meanwhile, forthright condemnation of antisemitic speech is nowhere to be heard from the campus or the central university administration. Administrators see a polarized faculty and student body, so they hide in plain sight wary of offending either constituency. The UI Chicago Chancellor took the most cowardly way out and imposed silence regarding murders that were now in court.
Beware the fire next time.
—
Cary Nelson is an emeritus faculty member at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a former president of the American Association of University Professors. His most recent book is Mindless: What Happened to Universities?
