A federal judge in Illinois has scheduled a Feb. 8, 2027, trial to determine whether the American Muslims for Palestine group can be held legally responsible for the 1996 murder of American teenager David Boim, according to a court document obtained by Jewish Insider. The landmark case could establish whether U.S. organizations are liable for funding Hamas terror operations.

In May 1996, 17-year-old David Boim, an American studying abroad at a yeshiva in Israel, was shot and killed by two Hamas terrorists at a bus stop. Boim was one of the first Americans killed by Hamas, which the U.S. later designated as a foreign terrorist organization. His murder sparked a decades-long legal battle as his parents, Stanley and Joyce Boim, have sought to hold the perpetrators and their alleged financial backers accountable through the American court system. 

In 2017, Daniel Schlessinger, the Boims’ lead attorney, filed a lawsuit against AMP, a leading anti-Israel advocacy group with alleged ties to Hamas. The lawsuit accuses AMP of acting as an “alter ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a now-defunct group that shut down after it was found to have provided material support to Hamas. 

AMP describes itself as “a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing the movement for justice in Palestine by educating the American public about Palestine and its rich cultural, historical and religious heritage and through grassroots mobilization and advocacy.” But the nonprofit has come under renewed scrutiny since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza — in large part due to its ties to anti-Israel protests on college campuses. 

After a 2004 landmark decision, the Boim family was awarded $156 million under the Anti-Terrorism Act to be paid by U.S.-based groups, including the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and IAP, for providing material support to Hamas. The ruling established a precedent — organizations financing terrorist groups could now face significant civil liability and criminal penalties. After the ruling, the IAP ceased operations, and the Holy Land Foundation later closed after the U.S. government designated it a terrorist front. 

Although a judge had previously ruled that AMP could not be considered what is legally described as an “alter ego” of the earlier organization, the ruling was overturned in 2022 and the case was reopened.

Next year’s trial could further “pave the way for American families who have been the victims of terror, in particular those killed or taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attacks, to seek justice in federal courts across the United States,” Schlessinger told JI. 

Thirty years after Boim’s murder, Joyce Boim said she “still feels the pain every day” over the loss of her son. 

“It is incredible to me that Hamas and the terrorist depravity it stands for continue to gain support around the world, including in the U.S.,” she said. “We are as determined as ever to pursue our case and obtain a small measure of justice for David, while also helping in the battle to fight Islamic terrorism.” 

The Knesset passed a controversial law on Monday allowing — and in some cases requiring — courts to impose the death penalty on terrorists found guilty of murder. Opponents swiftly challenged the legislation in court, with appeals arguing that its designations are vague and discriminatory.

While Israel already allowed the death penalty for genocide and crimes against humanity, it had not been invoked since the execution of senior Nazi Adolf Eichmann in 1962. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party proposed the new law in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks with an aim to have terrorists sentenced to death, and conditioned the party’s support for the state budget, which the Knesset approved earlier Monday, on passage of the bill.

The law applies in military courts to non-Israeli residents of the West Bank — meaning, in the vast majority of cases, Palestinians. 

In civilian courts, the law permits applying the death penalty to those who “intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel” — language which would also likely exclude Jewish assailants.

The law further states that the government cannot free or exchange prisoners sentenced to death. Israel released around 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners last fall in exchange for hostages held in Gaza, including about 250 prisoners who were serving life sentences for carrying out deadly terror attacks.

The legislation passed along coalition lines, with 62 in favor and 48 opposed.

Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Zvika Fogel argued from the Knesset podium that “the State of Israel is dealing with a reality of evil and hatred that is unmatched around the world. Our enemies do not want a border, compromise or shared future. Rather, [they seek] to destroy, harm, sow fear and undermine our existence here. In such a reality, it is our clear responsibility to defend the citizens of Israel not with words or hopes, but with action.” 

“This bill is not about revenge or rage, but the state’s responsibility towards its citizens and its leadership towards human life. … The message is clear, whoever chooses the path of terror and raises a hand against Israeli citizens … should know that it has a clear and irreversible price,” Fogel added.

The new law is also much broader than legislation making its way through the Knesset to prosecute perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attacks in a special military tribunal, which could also result in their being sentenced to death.

Yulia Malinovsky, from the opposition Israel Beytenu party and one of the cosponsors of the bill to prosecute Oct. 7 perpetrators, said that “everyone in the coalition understands that Otzma Yehudit’s bill cannot be implemented and will be struck down by the High Court of Justice, but they are all afraid of Ben-Gvir. They tell me so themselves.”

“I am in favor of the death penalty for terrorists,” she added, “but… even if [the law] passes and is not canceled, terrorists will only die of old age.”

Gilad Kariv of the Labor Party plans to petition the High Court against the law, along with Israeli human rights organizations.

During the debate, Kariv said that the law is “not moral, not Jewish and not democratic, nor is it helpful to security.” According to Kariv, none of the defense officials or experts that appeared before the Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee meetings to discuss the bill said that it would serve as a deterrent against terrorism.

Some lawmakers, like Hadash-Ta’al’s Aida Touma-Sliman, argued that the bill is discriminatory against Arabs, comparing it to apartheid South Africa and the Jim Crow South: “First, we look at the nationality of the victim and the nationality of the murderer, and then we decide.” 

However, Touma-Sliman added, she would still oppose the law if it were applied more broadly to Israelis, because she opposes the death penalty — “even against terrorist settlers.”

The Foreign Ministers of Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. released a joint statement expressing “deep concern” about the bill on Sunday.

“The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles,” they stated. “The death penalty is an inhumane and degrading form of punishment without any deterring effect. This is why we oppose the death penalty, whatever the circumstances around the world. The rejection of the death penalty is a fundamental value that unites us. We urge the Israeli decision makers in Knesset and Government to abandon these plans.”

The debate ahead of the final votes on the death penalty law took close to 10 hours, and was not held in the plenum; rather it took place in an auditorium that is fortified in case of a missile attack from Iran.

Six months after the death of their son, Yaron Lischinsky, and his girlfriend, Sarah Milgrim, in a shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, Daniel and Ruth Lischinsky visited Washington last week to meet with senior administration officials and visit the sites where their son — who, with Milgrim, worked at the Israeli Embassy — lived, worked and, ultimately, died.

Speaking to Jewish Insider during their time in the U.S. capital, the pair reflected on their son’s life and legacy.

“In the beginning it was a big shock for all of us because it was so unexpected — [it was] like an earthquake,” Ruth Lischinsky said of his killing. “Now, we are feeling much more — we are missing him much more. He’s not coming back home. He’s not calling, no message[s], no nothing. So it’s really hard.”

At first, Daniel Lischinsky said, they equated the experience to being on drugs. “We didn’t know where we are and somebody removed the floor beneath us.” But he said they were grateful for the support of their friends, family and community as they grappled with their loss.

He said that his son was a “very sweet boy” and “very gentle, very artistic, very sensible all the time”; he was passionate about soccer as a child and had visions of being a professional player.

“All the time [he was] looking [out] for other people. What are their needs, how are they feeling, approaching the people that are lonely or on the side when you are in big groups,” Daniel Lischinsky continued. “He was a peacemaker. He tried [to make] people understand one [another], talking with the other and not fighting. He was a big fan of the Abraham Accords and he was a peacemaker. He knew that through diplomacy he can reach and he can make achievements.”

It was that passion, his mother said, that led him to pursue diplomatic service and ultimately land in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. She said she’s been struck by the number of people that knew her son in the nation’s capital.

“I have so many opportunities reaching out to different communities,” she said. “He was in contact with so many people. We were really blown away when we realized it now, that so many people knew him and he had contact with them.”

Lischinsky “loved” his time in Washington and ended up “in the right place,” Daniel Lischinsky said.

During their time in Washington, the Lischinskys visited the site where their son and Milgrim were killed, outside the Capital Jewish Museum.

“Seeing the place where they [were] killed was the hardest part, of course,” Ruth Lischinsky said. “But we wanted to go there to somehow connect.”

They said they regretted that they did not have the opportunity to meet Milgrim in person before her death. The young couple had arranged to visit Lischinsky’s parents in Israel days after they were killed, and Lischinsky was planning to propose.

The Lischinskys traveled to Washington both to meet with administration officials involved in fighting antisemitism as well as to meet with Lischinsky and Milgrim’s colleagues at the embassy, and see where the couple had worked together. 

Ruth Lischinsky said she’d been impressed by the dedication to fighting antisemitism expressed by the officials they met with — “they are really serious about it.” 

Daniel Lischinsky said that they came to offer any help they can, but also told the officials that “they need to be stronger, much more strong against antisemitism, and against every crazy one that can be suspicious, like this murderer that took the life of our children. We told them that we don’t want to hear anymore about something like this, not here in Washington, D.C., and not in the States.”

Ruth Lischinsky added that the U.S. media needs to do a better job of accurately reporting what is happening in Israel. Daniel Lischinsky said that inaccurate reporting encourages violent attacks such as the one that killed Lischinsky and Milgrim.

The couple also called for better education, starting early in schools, and for stronger law enforcement response to suspicious individuals like Elias Rodriguez, who has been indicted on murder charges for the shooting.

The Lischinskys, referencing an issue that Milgrim’s parents have also spoken about publicly, expressed shock that protesters were allowed to gather for months directly outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, making so much noise that they were disrupting work inside the building.

The pair have also been traveling to Jewish communities around the world, recently visiting the site of a bombing that targeted the AMIA Jewish community center in Argentina and the Jewish community in Los Angeles.

“We, all the Jewish people, the people in Israel, are praying for you, and you are helping us and praying for us, the Israelis and the people in Israel,” Daniel Lischinsky said. “We are very much encouraged by the support and the love of the Jewish community here in the U.S. It’s really a balsam for our hearts.”

For Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum last week brought to life fears he has harbored for months, amid rising extremism in anti-Israel demonstrations.

The Jewish Ohio congressman told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday that days before the shooting, while attending a public event in downtown Cincinnati, he had a “really vivid image of being shot in the back of the head. What I saw was myself laying on the ground in the way in which you would be if you had been shot in the head … I wasn’t alive, I was dead.”

“And then, literally two or three days later, that’s what happened outside the Jewish museum. That’s what happened to these two innocent people,” Landsman continued. “When I saw it, I immediately thought, that’s where they are. They’re on the ground dead … It all then just felt so inevitable that this was going to happen.”

He said he feels the country has been on a “trajectory” toward such violence by anti-Israel agitators, and is worried that it will continue without a change in course. Landsman said that he and other members of the Jewish community, particularly fellow Jewish lawmakers, have had growing fears of violence akin to last week’s murders since the Oct. 7 attacks.

“It’s the way in which they get in your face and they speak to you and they’re saying these incredibly threatening things, like, ‘You’re going to pay for this,’” Landsman explained, referring to anti-Israel demonstrators. “That was a line I heard many, many times. Once in a Target parking lot with my children … This was what we were afraid of.”

A group of anti-Israel protesters also spent days camped outside Landsman’s house, including overnight, yards from his bedroom.

“This is the trajectory, incidentally, of all blood libels, when Jews are accused of murder, from the blood libel around Jesus to the blood libel around genocide,” he said.

Landsman said that, in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, he’d been able to have meaningful conversations with large groups of constituents about the attacks and the developing war in Gaza and about their differing positions on it.

But over time, he continued, “those groups have gotten smaller, but more intense. The numbers have shrunk but the rhetoric and the vitriol has grown, has worsened.”

Landsman issued a lengthy statement earlier this week outlining his fears, the links he sees between the shooting and “blood libels” spread about Israel and the Jewish community and the path forward to counter antisemitism.

He told JI he initially wrote the statement to make sense of the shooting and his thoughts around it, and to process what he and his family have been experiencing. He said he put it out in the hopes of helping people — even those who disagree with him about Israel policy — to think about their behavior and decisions and to lay out a “better path.”

“This is an incredibly complicated set of situations. The murders on Wednesday were just horrific and maddening,” Landsman said. “We’ve got to go down a different path and I tried to lay that out, and hopefully that’ll be part of the conversation. There is a difference between protest and chaos, there’s a difference between free speech and hate speech and violent rhetoric. And the more people know where those lines are, the better.”

Landsman argued that leaders at all levels have a responsibility to educate themselves and help their communities “understand where the lines are” between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. “There’s a way to speak out on whatever side that helps people get closer to solving a problem and doesn’t ever lead anyone to believe they should go pick up a gun and go kill Jews.”

He said that political leaders who have perpetuated narratives accusing Israel of genocide or turned a blind eye to violent rhetoric from anti-Israel demonstrators have fed into the milieu of “anti-Israel outbursts — I don’t want to call them protests” that culminated in last week’s shooting. 

“I don’t want to say that they contributed to what happened [last] Wednesday, although all of these roads ended up there,” Landsman said. “I think silence can be a contributing factor to something getting worse.”

He said there have also been failures to properly distinguish protected free speech from unprotected speech, and protests with proper permits adhering to relevant laws and the “chaos” that has characterized others. 

Landsman emphasized that he’s a strong advocate for protest and freedom of speech, but that anti-Israel protests like those outside his home have routinely breached relevant laws governing such demonstrations.

When protests cross a line into dangerous territory, Landsman said, “you can’t just sit there and say, ‘Oh, it’s free speech.’ And I think that has happened across the board. That’s what happened at Columbia. It’s what happened outside my house.”

He offered particular condemnation for professors at schools such as Columbia University for encouraging anti-Israel protesters. The students, he noted, in some cases faced strong punishment, while many of the faculty, having tenure, remain largely unaffected.

“They took these 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids who needed guidance, gave them none, pushed them into the lion’s den, and then walked away,” Landsman said. “If you’re in a position of leadership, you’ve got to lead, and leading means engaging, and engaging means problem-solving and working through something.”

One of Landsman’s main recommendations for addressing antisemitism and trying to prevent further violence is passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which was derailed in the Senate by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. He suggested that much of the discourse claiming the bill would silence freedom of speech is driven by a lack of understanding of the legislation and its use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Landsman said the legislation, and any issues around antisemitism and hatred, should not be politicized, noting that many lawmakers on both sides are guilty of doing so. He said that the strident opposition to the legislation from both sides shows the extent of antisemitism, and the ways that actors on the right and left are reluctant to grapple with the antisemitic nature of things they say or believe.

He added that the bill does not silence freedom of speech, but it does help clarify the ways that attacks on Israel and the Jewish community can be antisemitic and can help encourage training and education to “help everyone, not just Jewish students.”

Though the legislation focuses exclusively on campus issues, Landsman said that adopting the IHRA definition through the legislation will provide a signal and a tool for other communities and society at large to understand antisemitism, and would help tackle one of the epicenters of antisemitism nationwide.

“I do think helping college campuses do this better is a huge step in the right direction,” Landsman said. “It’s all connected … You get [the bill] passed and then you start applying that to big tech, you start applying it to … the medical field … I think it becomes a vehicle or similar bills become relevant for other spaces. But you’ve got to get this one done.”

He also encouraged individuals and institutions, like college campuses, to take the time to look at and utilize resources from nonpartisan Jewish community institutions like the American Jewish Committee and work with such groups to better understand antisemitism and the dangers of violent anti-Israel ideologies — and of ideologies seeking to eliminate Palestinians.

Landsman, characterizing the Trump administration’s rescinding of federal funds for universities and student visas as unproductive, also urged the administration to work with groups like AJC to put together plans to address the issue and work with universities to implement them. 

“It’s not TV stuff, it’s not headline-grabbing stuff. It’s a real plan where, over the course of the next couple of years, we’re going to make some changes that will help dramatically improve peoples lives,” Landsman said. “And to some extent, that’s what the bill calls for.”

Pro-Israel leaders in the United States on Thursday connected the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington to the anti-Israel advocacy seen on the political extremes throughout the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, characterizing it as a culmination of such rhetoric and, in some cases, the failure of some politicians to denounce it.

The suspected shooter, Elias Rodriguez, shouted “free, free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” following the shooting, according to an eyewitness and video from the arrest. He reportedly published a manifesto railing against Israel.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that the attack should be a signal to the left that it needs to rethink its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism. He compared the anti-Israel movement in the United States to a “cult” that has been stoked online and is using inherently violent slogans while its members “try to hide behind this idea that it’s free speech to intimidate and terrorize members of the Jewish community.”

He said that too many on the left have failed to call out antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement.

“Why can’t you just call it what it is, and then address and assert the pressure on the aggressor,” which is Hamas,” Fetterman said. “I can’t even imagine having to live with that ever-present antisemitism and what? Why can’t people just acknowledge and call that what it is?”

Fetterman predicted that the same elements of the left that have supported Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will also rally behind Rodriguez.

“What part of my party does this come from where it’s like, we try to defend or try to justify assassinating an executive in broad daylight or … somebody [who] guns down” two people at a Jewish event, Fetterman asked incredulously.

Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter connected the shooting to the anti-Israel protests seen on college campuses and elsewhere in the country.

“The point of the matter is that on campuses around this country, where ideas — these are the temples of ideas — where smart ideas, intelligent ideas, moral ideas, truthful ideas, are supposed to be taught, we have useful idiots running around in support of the destruction of Israel,” Leiter said at a press conference.

“This is done in the name of a political agenda to eradicate the State of Israel,” Leiter added. “The State of Israel is now fighting a war on seven fronts. This is the eighth front, a war to demonize, delegitimize, to eradicate the right of the State of Israel to exist.”

He also connected rising global antisemitism to countries like France that have spoken out against Israel and are moving to recognize a Palestinian state.

A coalition of 42 Jewish organizations, in a statement, described the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said on X, “There is a direct line between demonizing Israel, tolerating antisemitic hate speech in the public square, and violent action.” 

“We are now witnessing the deadly consequences of months of relentless antisemitic incitement — amplified by international organizations and political leaders across the globe — since the horrors of October 7,” Daroff said. “This is not a debate over policy; it is the mainstreaming of hatred, and its consequences are measured in blood.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said on X the attack was “the deadly consequence of normalizing Jew-hatred.”

“Since October 7, antisemitic attacks have surged — fueled by violent chants to ‘globalize the intifada’ and slurs like ‘dirty Zionist,’” Gottheimer said. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), highlighting a tweet from a local anti-Israel group that praised the attack, said that, “Violence is not a bug but a feature of virulent Anti-Zionism.”

Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez called out a series of progressive lawmakers, saying, “spare us the fake outrage.”

“Two Israeli diplomats were murdered in cold blood—and you dare act concerned? Y’all have spent years fueling the hate and antisemitism that’s now exploding across America. Don’t pretend to care,” Hernandez continued, in an X post. “You are constantly surrounded by keffiyehs and “Free Palestine” and have pushed rhetoric that’s radicalized Americans into thinking murdering Jews and harassing them in the streets will somehow “liberate” Palestine and end the so-called genocide. No thanks.”

“We don’t want prayers from politicians who support individuals and organizations that promote this hate and who are being actively supported by said individuals and organizations while they run for office,” Hernandez added.

“You can’t support chants of ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and then be ‘appalled’ when people act it out,” Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch said on X in response to a statement on the attack from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that did not acknowledge that the victims worked for the Israeli embassy and condemned “violence” broadly. Panitch also criticized other progressive Democrats who issued statements on the attack.

Panitch added, “Fascinating that those who campaigned against the Jewish community’s right to define their own experience of antisemitism are the ones who call ‘Globalizing the Intifada’ peaceful protests. The same ones who can’t say the word antisemitism in their posts.”

Jordan Acker, the University of Michigan regent who has been repeatedly targeted with antisemitic harassment and vandalism, drew a direct line between those incidents and demonstrations on the University of Michigan’s campus, and the Wednesday night murders.

“This isn’t protest. It’s a threat. This is what antisemitism looks like — and it’s escalating,” Acker said. “This is part of a terrifying trend: Jews in America being hunted, harassed, and attacked for being visibly Jewish — for existing in public. When we call it antisemitism, we’re told we’re overreacting. That our fear is political. That our pain is inconvenient. We’ve been gaslit for 18 months. Enough.”

He also called out progressives directly, saying “antisemitism isn’t any less dangerous when it comes wrapped in ‘progressive’ language.”

In response to the attack, some of the most prominent far-left critics of Israel on Capitol Hill have offered what many in the Jewish community have seen as half-hearted and inadequate responses.

“My heart breaks for the loved ones of the victims of last night’s attack in D.C. Nobody deserves such terrible violence. Everyone in our communities deserves to live in safety and in peace,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said, linking to an article highlighting that the victims, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were Israeli Embassy workers, but not noting their backgrounds or the circumstances of the shooting in her own post.

Omar noted that the shooting took place at the Capital Jewish Museum but did not acknowledge the victims’ backgrounds and condemned violence broadly.

“I am appalled by the deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum last night. Holding the victims, their families, and loved ones in my thoughts and prayers,” Omar said. “Violence should have no place in our country.”