August 28, 2025
Dear JYC Global Family,
The toll on innocent lives grows with each passing day: famine in Gaza, civilians in the crosshairs, hostages still not released — many starving — and escalating threats of wider war and devastation.
Through every unimaginable headline, JYC has been grieving, listening, and building—committing ourselves, day in and day out, to composing a shared future.
Now, more than ever, our mission is vital to survival— not only sustaining hope today, but uprooting the causes of violence to prevent tomorrow’s death and despair. Through long-term music and dialogue education, we equip Palestinian and Israeli youth to build connection, foster understanding, and transpose conflict. Because if we are to confront the root causes of today’s atrocities, rather than simply chase the headlines, this work is essential.
In moments of such profound suffering, we search for anchors of hope. For our chorus, that steady force has long been the song: “I Need You to Survive.”
We first sang it with Uniting Voices Chicago a decade ago, and its message—that our shared humanity must always come first—has only deepened as the world has fallen further and further short of this basic goal.
But we keep singing it, because that vision—that our lives are bound up in one another’s—is not just poetic. It is urgent.
Our singers know this in their bones because they live it. Every tour, every performance, every rehearsal, they are reminded of their need for one another.
JYC gives them a melody they never imagined possible.
As the World Falls Further, JYC Forges a Shared Survival
Since we were attacked by BDS in February, our social media channels have been intentionally quiet — a difficult but necessary choice to, first and foremost, protect our singers – while we built a strategy for a responsible and powerful reemergence. But we have not been waiting on the sidelines. Quite the contrary.
Despite everything, this coming year, we are preparing to welcome our largest-ever cohort of singers from East and West Jerusalem.
With new music and music videos on the horizon, rehearsals beginning next week, and our voices soon to be featured at the first-ever World Congress on the Social Impact of Music in Toronto, the 2025–2026 season is set to be transformative for singers and audiences alike.
350+ Hours of Hope & Transformation
As peace builder and friend of JYC Maoz Inon — who lost both his parents on October 7 — reminds us: “Hope is active. It is simple and it is collaborative. We make hope when we join together in the bold act of imagining a better future.”
And, that’s exactly what our singers do: they make hope—And it is hard-won and hard-earned – forged through 350+ hours each in rehearsals, dialogue, and leadership, boldly singing their vision of a shared Jerusalem into life.
Those hours were not abstract — they were full of growth:
The impact is clear: 70% of our youth remain hopeful about a better future, even in a year when despair felt overwhelming worldwide.
And, 87% of JYC singers wish to return next year. That commitment — to one another, to the music, and to charting a future in harmony — is the strongest indicator of all.
Every rehearsal, every dialogue, every new song they learn is their way of saying to one another again and again: I need you to survive. And against all odds, somehow, our singers keep answering with hope.
Their resilience, however, would not be possible without, YOU.
Your support fuels them!
Sing It With Us
You are living proof that difference doesn’t have to mean division. You help us build something we were all told was impossible: a shared future where “I need you to survive” is more than a song — it’s a way of life.
DOUBLE YOUR GIFT
And right now, we are grateful to share that your impact can go even further. Thanks to the generosity of Julie Sissman and Phil Richter, all gifts will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000.
At a time when pundits claim “Israel/Palestine is too far gone,” and the headlines scream only despair, your support helps us prove otherwise.
Let’s keep building what the world said was impossible.
With gratitude and resolve,
Micah, Amer, Jackie, and the Jerusalem Youth Chorus