CNN
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A Jewish congressman on Wednesday shared his personal fears of political violence, as he reflected on last week’s fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers and called on those protesting the war in Gaza to do so peacefully.
Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman shared Wednesday that the killing of “two innocent young people,” Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, “was deeply personal and profoundly unsettling.”
“First, let me be as honest and as personal as it gets. I have had a hard time getting the image of being shot and killed out of my head. It happens almost every time I’m in a big crowd now,” the Ohio congressman, who’s now in his second term, wrote in an emotional statement.
“Last Saturday at a rally back home, I decided not to have police protection. Standing in a crowd talking to constituents, I had the most vivid image: All of a sudden, I saw myself on the ground, dead from a gunshot. This is what actually happened a few days later to Yaron and Sarah.”
Landsman told CNN in an interview following the release of his statement that he “felt compelled to be as honest as possible, so that we can pull back from this moment and people stop to read it and think about it and we don’t have to live like this. We can protect speech and each other simultaneously.”
The congressman said he wants “people to appreciate that organizing and advocating and pushing for something you believe in is so critically important, and that there is a difference between protest and chaos.”
“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech or violent speech,” he continued. “And just to do everything in your power to make sure that you and others are in solidly in the camp of protest and free speech and nowhere near chaos and hate or violent speech.”
In his statement, Landsman detailed how anti-Israel protesters have followed him for more than a year, including sleeping outside his home, and have threatened him and his family. “They don’t just protest. They get in my face, screaming about the ‘genocide’ I’m causing,” he wrote, while also stressing that most protesters aren’t violent.
Other Jewish members of Congress, he said, face similar situations, and some have “constant police protection” while back in their home states.
“We worry about being on Capitol Hill, too. Without going into specific security concerns, we know that what happened to Yaron and Sarah could happen to one of us as we move around the Capitol,” he wrote.
He compared the killing of Lischinsky and Milgrim to the “outrageous murder” of 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume, whom authorities said was killed because he was Muslim.
“We allow people to ‘otherize’ and demonize folks, and we forget to appreciate that it often turns violent,” Landsman wrote. “Everyone has to do a better job of ensuring disagreements don’t lead to this disturbing and dangerous process.” He also attributed the violence against the Israeli Embassy staffers to the spreading of “blood libels.”
He continued his calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas. He also called on the Senate to pass the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act, which the House passed last year. Landsman argued that the bill would be helpful in fighting antisemitism, along with colleges working with organizations such as the American Jewish Committee.
“I would encourage my colleagues to stop politicizing this, on both sides. Our safety and wellbeing are at stake, and antisemitism should be a nonpartisan, noncontroversial issue,” he wrote.
Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, were leaving an event on May 21 at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, when a gunman opened fire, killing them, authorities said.
“It is so deeply painful and it shook all of us because one, two really wonderful people were executed. And two, this is what we have been telling people will happen if folks don’t change the way they’re talking about this,” Landsman told CNN.
