Friends,
We woke up yesterday to an America we all hoped we’d never see again. In 2016, I said that the election of Donald Trump “threatened to upend the very notion of what America means, to ourselves and to the world” and I’ll say it again now. We will now rejoin the ranks of countries around the globe moving away from democratic values and liberal ideals and into the arms of strongmen and their corrupt regimes.
But we are still the same New Israel Fund. And our community believes in democracy. We believe in human rights, compassion, and prophetic justice for every human being. It will be these values that bring us together in the next four years. It will be these values that inform and inspire our work.
At this moment of profound uncertainty and despair, I look to my Israeli colleagues and I find hope and inspiration in their resilience and their grit. They have been dissidents, to varying degrees, for a long, long time. And they have been writing the playbook for how we, here in the U.S., can push back against rising authoritarianism at home. They have helped so many Israelis understand that we can shift the tide, that small, local changes can make huge differences, and that we can resist, that we can protest and that we always have a choice. I see this everywhere in our grantees’ work, and I am reminded that we have this ethos in our blood here in America too. The civil rights movement was not that long ago.
And so, in the spirit of that movement, and in the movements in Israel we have supported to end the war, bring the hostages home, feed and support innocent people in Gaza, provide for those abandoned by their government after October 7, support Israel’s Arab minority, and to fight for democracy, freedom, and equality for all, I say to you today that no matter how dark the night, no matter how the storm may rage, we are here, and we are in this fight together. We will not stand by silently when our values are undermined in Israel or here at home. Today we take a breath and get back on our feet. Tomorrow, we roll up our sleeves and get back to work.
Finally, I found these words from author and activist Rebecca Solnit comforting. I hope they bring you some comfort as well.
In solidarity,
Daniel
“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love. The Wobblies used to say don’t mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don’t have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning.
You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset and check your equipment for going onward. A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.
People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”