June 25, 2025
Dear JYC Global Family,
Normally, at this time of year, we would be preparing our end-of-year concert.
But these past weeks, as rockets rained over the region, our singers faced daily curfews, closures, and air raid sirens. With safety at risk, we put the concert on hold and shifted our twice-weekly rehearsals online.
Despite the uncertainty and fear—and not knowing if the concert could happen at all—something deeply powerful emerged…
This past Monday, our singers gathered—across screens, borders, and realities—for a virtual rehearsal that became one of our most extraordinary moments of the year.
Though we couldn’t be together in person, we were united in purpose—rooted in resilience, lifted by song, and held in the presence of someone whose music has long steadied us: vocal activist, composer, and musical-spiritual leader Melanie DeMore.
Melanie is the composer of “Standing Stone”—a song we teach each year on retreat before the hard conversations begin, a song that anchors us in connection that we call on in times of need. This was one of those times.
“I will be your standing stone, I will stand by you.”
Melanie shared the meaning behind each of the three harmony lines of Standing Stone:
- The melody: A declaration of rootedness and presence.
- The upper harmony: A fierce loyalty—don’t try me or us. I’ll stand by my friends no matter what!
- The lower harmony: The one that lifts. I can hold you, support you, and raise you up.
She reminded us: we can’t always control what happens around us. But we can choose to show up. And we can sing.
That is precisely what we did. Melanie also led us in the spiritual, “This Little Light of Mine,” clapping and moving to rhythms passed down through Gullah traditions— where enslaved people, stripped of drums, used broomsticks against the floors of their stilted houses, transforming their entire home into a percussion instrument. Melanie, a master of this tradition, told us, “just as the Gullah people made music from what was within and around them, you too have everything you need in you and around you.”
Unfortunately, the world outside our end-of-year zoom gathering told a different story entirely. . .
These songs don’t just carry melody. They carry memory. They carry the human need to be seen. To be witnessed. To be whole. But during this unfolding of healing and hope with Melanie, one of our Palestinian members unmuted to say, “Pray for me—I just arrived at Bab al-Amoud [Damascus Gate: a frequent flashpoint of violence that also serves as the main entrance to the Old City from East Jerusalem].” Moments later, he was stopped, questioned, and beaten by an Israeli police officer—on his way home.
That whiplash—that jarring juxtaposition—is the reality our singers live in. One moment, they are held close in harmony. The next, they are pulled aside and attacked. But JYC is always there to lift them up again, as time after time, they choose to sing. And show up for each other.
Be a Standing Stone for Our Singers
As Melanie reminded us on Monday, “If your left foot isn’t resisting and your right foot isn’t uplifting, you’re not walking the walk.”
Thankfully, we will now be able to meet again in person for an intimate end-of-year gathering for our singers and their families tomorrow, which will surely be full of hugs, tears, and laughter, as we celebrate our singers’ courage and resilience, and recommit to that resisting and uplifting—together.
Right now, our singers are walking that walk—in a world that is burning. And we are inviting you to walk with them.
If you know someone who needs a flicker of light—someone feeling numb, exhausted, or overwhelmed—we invite you to forward this message to them.
Help them witness what becomes possible when young people choose a different way, when they demonstrate what the world could be.
Word of mouth is our strongest amplifier. Your forward could be the spark someone needs today.
JYC’s original song, “A Different Way”
End-of-Year, Enduring Resilience
Our students continue to choose the radical act of singing together, of being each other’s “standing stones,” of refusing to let the loudest voices around them define their future.
We refuse to accept the madness of war as inevitable, when we know there is a different way.
Thank you for walking that path with us.
Micah, Amer, Jackie, and the Jerusalem Youth Chorus