Miami-Dade deputies up patrols near places of worship after slayings at Jewish museum in DC
Miami-Dade deputies will increase patrols around places of worship following Wednesday night’s attack outside the Captial Jewish Museum in Washington that killed two Israeli embassy staffers, the sheriff announced Thursday.
Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said there will be more deputies around synagogues, mosques, Jewish schools and other cultural institutions in Miami-Dade.
Sarah Milgrim, 26, and Yarn Lischinsky, 30, were leaving an event at the museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee when the gunman opened fire, authorities said. The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 30, from Chicago, chanted, “Free, free Palestine” as police hauled him off in handcuffs.
“Murdering Jews is not an act of freedom fighting; it is an act of terror that should prompt condemnation by people of conscience across the political spectrum,” the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said in a statement Thursday.
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation, in a statement Thursday, said local law enforcement authorities “have informed us that there are no known additional threats to the South Florida Jewish community at this time.”
Milgrim and Lischinsky were a couple who met at the embassy about a year and a half ago, according to The New York Times. They were planning to fly to Israel Sunday so Milgrim could meet Lischinsky’s parents.
Milgrim’s parents told The Times that they just found out that Lischinsky recently bought an engagement ring and was likely to propose on the trip.
Cordero-Stutz urged the public to be alert and report any suspicious activity they see around places of worship
“My thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected, and rest assured we will do everything in our power to keep our community safe,” Cordero-Stutz said in a statement on X.
Joshua Sayles, the Federation’s director of Jewish community relations and government affairs, said he has not heard of any additional threats in Florida but encouraged the some 150 Jewish organizations in South Florida to “stay alert and stay informed.”
“Be proud to be Jewish and don’t allow this terrorist and this act of terror prevent our community from being proudly Jewish and proudly supporting Israel as we always do,” Sayles said in a statement.
The Federation, according to Sayles, is working with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office to provide additional security measures, which might look like increased patrol officers at houses of worship and cultural institutions, over the next few days, possibly weeks, to help keep the Jewish community safe in South Florida.
“We are in South Florida one of the most vibrant, public, proud Jewish communities in the country and in the world. We fully intend to continue in being exactly who we are and who we have been,” Sayles said.
He said on his mind are all of the employees at the Israeli consulate in Miami, who are out and about in the community in Jewish and non-Jewish spaces every day.
“What makes me the saddest today is thinking about them, because they’re our friends, they’re my personal friends, and they’re the friends of the community, and it just as easily could have been one of them.”
The Federation and other local Jewish groups condemned the murders of Lischinsky and Milgrim, saying the “targeted attack is just another piece in a mountain of conclusive evidence that the severe worldwide increase in overt, anti-Jewish violent acts and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack against Israel are directly and strongly correlated.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 12:28 PM.
