KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Rabbi Zalaman Tiechtel emailed this story idea to Lily. Share your story idea with Lily.
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Chabad at KU opened its doors to its new center for Jewish students at the University of Kansas on Sunday. The new space includes a memorial garden for Sarah Milgrim.
Milgrim was a part of Chabad at KU while she was a student at the University of Kansas, where she graduated in 2021.
Milgrim was 26 when she and her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky were killed in a shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., after an event organized by the American Jewish Committee on May 21. Milgrim and Lischinsky were Israeli embassy staffers.
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The F.B.I. called the killings a "targeted, anti-Semitic attack."
Adria Tipp is a student leader at Chabad at KU. She never met Sarah, but she said she and the rest of Chabad at KU felt the weight of her death.
"We are Jewish people, and when one of us falls, the rest of us feel that weight, and we have to pick each other back up," Tipp said.
Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel leads Chabad at KU. After Milgrim's death, Tiechtel said the KU Jewish community was devastated.
Tiechtel said Milgrim would spend Shabbat dinners and Hanukkah celebrations with Chabad at KU.
"We are so honored that Sarah's memory will continue to flow with the beautiful stream," Tiechtel said on Sunday.
In addition to the memorial garden, the new 10,000 square-foot center includes a synagogue, study spaces and a kosher kitchen among other amenities for students.
“It’s giving us a place that we can all be together, celebrate Shabbat or fun events, just get together, come do homework here, feel that you have this piece of Judaism even in your daily life,” Tipp said.
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