My Friend Yaron

I first met Yaron Lischinsky almost two years ago, at McCormick & Schmick’s steakhouse on K Street in Washington, D.C. I was new to the city and looking for new friends when we connected on X. I ordered a gin and tonic. He got nothing.

In typical Washington intro-meetings fashion, we began that awkward dance of “So what do you do?” I launched into the usual spiel about my work covering the Middle East for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But soon enough, the conversation veered, sharply and inevitably, toward my favorite subject: Christians in the Middle East, a community we were both members of.

Yaron sat quietly, listening more intently than most people ever do. “Then there was the First Council of Nicaea in 425 AD. . . ” I began. “325,” he gently corrected me, with a small, amused smile. Then he ordered a drink too.

That moment told me all I needed to know about Yaron. He was precise, but never performative. He loved truth, not triumph.

He told me how his family lived in Israel before they moved to Germany, about moving back when he was 16, and knowing, early and without hesitation, that he wanted to be a diplomat and peacemaker. Language came easily to him: Hebrew, Japanese, English, and of course, his native German. He moved through the world with care and thoughtfulness, as if everyone and everything he touched might break.

We became fast friends. A month later, he came to my birthday dinner and quickly smoothed over a heated debate between two friends without anyone realizing he’d done it. That was Yaron’s way—you could feel him, but never notice him.

We often talked about how strange and wonderful it must be to live in Jerusalem as a Christian, something he knew intimately and I still dream of. I once mentioned how much I loved the famous chocolate cake at the Austrian Hospice, a Christian hostel along the Via Dolorosa in the Old City. He made a face and said he’d never tried it, that he preferred the Apfelstrudel. “More subtle,” he claimed.

After any attack on a church or Christians in my native Egypt—and there are many of them—I’d get a message from him. Nothing long. Just “Are you okay?” or “I saw what happened.” He never forgot to do it.

In the days after October 7, we checked in on each other frequently. “If you can spare a prayer, please pray for the families of the victims and those being held captive,” he wrote to me on October 12, 2023. His sorrow was steady, even if unspoken.

Late last year we ran into each other at a policy roundtable. He made his way around the table saying hello to everyone, then slid into the seat next to mine. As the discussion went on, we passed notes back and forth like bored schoolkids, only our notes were critiques of talking points or stats we knew were off. My last note read, “That was so stupid.” Yaron read it, smiled, then quickly scribbled over it, as if he were protecting the speaker from a judgment they’d never hear.

Yaron was the kind of person who knew the exact year of the First Council of Nicaea and never made you feel small for getting it wrong. His murder leaves a wound in many hearts, one that may never fully heal, for he was the healer. Yaron was sharp, but more importantly, he was kind.

He didn’t just want to understand the world. He wanted to mend it. Quietly and gently. Thoughtfully. Steadily.

May his memory be a blessing.

Mariam Wahba is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.