J7 statement on the Deadly Shooting at the Jewish Museum in Washington DC.

The J7 Large Com­mu­ni­ties’ Task Force Against Anti­semitism, rep­re­sent­ing the sev­en largest dias­po­ra Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties, issued the fol­low­ing state­ment in reac­tion to Wednesday’s dead­ly shoot­ing at the Jew­ish Muse­um in Wash­ing­ton DC:

We are dev­as­tat­ed by the anti­se­mit­ic ter­ror­ist shoot­ing tar­get­ing the Cap­i­tal Jew­ish Muse­um in Wash­ing­ton DC, killing two young peo­ple at the prime of their lives who had been attend­ing an Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee event for young lead­er­ship on diplo­mat­ic human­i­tar­i­an projects.

The threat of anti­se­mit­ic vio­lence and ter­ror­ism tar­get­ing Jew­ish insti­tu­tions and Jew­ish peo­ple is a dai­ly real­i­ty for our com­mu­ni­ties. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in the after­math of the 7 Octo­ber 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, we have seen the expo­nen­tial rise in anti­se­mit­ic actions and threats along with a con­tin­u­al drum­beat of rhetoric that incites and jus­ti­fies this hate.

This heinous attack is yet anoth­er wake-up call that gov­ern­ments, law enforce­ment and soci­eties world­wide need to take lan­guage and threats direct­ed against the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty seri­ous­ly and ensure our com­mu­ni­ties have the secu­ri­ty they need. In the past decade, Jews have been killed in their syn­a­gogues, kosher gro­cery stores, and their homes. Anti­se­mit­ic atti­tudes, stereo­types, and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries have become more nor­mal­ized. They are a threat not only to Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties but also to the free­doms and rights of all peo­ple.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the fam­i­lies of Yaron Lischin­sky, an Israeli-Ger­man and Sarah Lynn Mil­grim, an Amer­i­can from Kansas, who were staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Wash­ing­ton. May their mem­o­ries be a bless­ing.

J7 Members

Argenti­na: Del­e­gación de Aso­cia­ciones Israeli­tas Argenti­nas (DAIA)
Aus­tralia: Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry (ECAJ)
Cana­da: Cen­tre for Israel and Jew­ish Affairs (CIJA)
France: Con­seil Représen­tatif des Insti­tu­tions Juives de France (CRIF)
Ger­many: Cen­tral Coun­cil of Jews in Ger­many
The Unit­ed King­dom: Board of Deputies of British Jews
The Unit­ed States: ADL (Anti-Defama­tion League) and the Con­fer­ence of Pres­i­dents of Major Amer­i­can Jew­ish Orga­ni­za­tions