Turning pain into purpose

I only met Sarah Milgrim once, but her murder this week hit close to home. We connected a little under two years ago because she was a peacebuilder. She participated in work to help Israelis and Palestinians become partners and allies. She studied conflict resolution in school. She worked on it in the region. And we met because she was networking to find a way to continue on her peacebuilding path in Washington, DC.

At the time, she had just finished a year working with Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) member organization, Tech2Peace. She not only volunteered in their seminars, but “she became one of us,” said co-founder Tomer Cohen. He shared with me that “she brought warmth, professionalism, and a deep sense of dedication. Her presence made a difference.”

Sarah helped Tech2Peace optimize their programs for maximum impact — making sure the difficult work has lasting impact. They were bringing Israelis and Palestinians together for the toughest, most critical engagement and conversations — and then incubating joint high-tech businesses, the building blocks of a better future. Tech2Peace’s then-CEO, Hela Lahar, said Sarah’s “work was not just an academic exercise; it was a reflection of her deep-seated belief in the power of understanding and connection.”

Sarah and I spoke after she finished her master’s at American University. She wanted to continue building peace from here in Washington. I never met her partner, Yaron Lischinsky, but those who knew them both stress that they made such a great pair not only because of their good souls but also because of their shared commitments to building bridges across borders, cultures, and conflicts.

In fact, that’s the very reason they gathered with Jewish leaders and other diplomats at AJC’s Young Diplomats Reception on Wednesday night. AJC had brought together next generation representatives from countries around the region and the world to discuss a critical issue: “turning pain into purpose,” not least getting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Gunning down people leaving such an event is both cruel and painfully ironic. 

It has been a tough week for my various communities and my friends. It once again raised the fear of even greater violence spilling over from the Middle East into the streets of America. Jews and Israelis, in Washington and beyond, felt Wednesday’s attack acutely. But from the statements and tributes online, it’s clear that it equally offended people of all backgrounds, including many Palestinians and Arabs.

Many of us were already reeling from the senselessly-resumed war in Gaza. From the starvation and dire humanitarian crisis. From the dimming hope for the hostages. From the bombing and the missiles. From an intensifying drumbeat of death. 

The terror and trauma of these last weeks has been coming at such a scale and pace that it can be too much to digest or comprehend. Too many of the victims pass unknown, their names unheard, their individual stories untold. Too often, violence is ignored or excused by the deadly, false binary — violence we tolerate or justify when we think it’s against “them” in supposed defense of “us.”

But, as the killings in Washington, DC — thousands of miles from the blood-soaked homeland of two peoples — are capturing global attention, they should serve as an almost-too-late wake-up call to realize how far this conflict can drag us down if we don’t solve it. Like prior anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-Palestinian attacks around the world, this week’s tragedy begs us to work against all violence, whether we think it’s aimed at “them” or “us.” 

The stories of Sarah Milgrim and other peacebuilders who have been killed during these long months in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza should push us to follow in their paths — to seek out the other and build bridges, to not allow this conflict to spread. Indeed, wherever we find ourselves, to always look for our next chance to end it. 

For years, my Palestinian and Israeli friends and colleagues doing the hardest work on the ground to build peace have urged our global diasporas not to expand problems by importing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to distant lands. Instead, they’ve begged, we should use our relative security and freedom in safe communities abroad to build bridges and to export engagement, dialogue, and especially, support for real solutions. 

The peacebuilders are closing this week devastated — but determined. Once again, they’ll turn pain into purpose and march forward in the struggle for peace.

Everyone who says they care should be asking: Will we be with them?