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The Telos Group

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How We Change This

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Friends:

 

We’re launching a new campaign: How We Change This.

Because life has rarely felt as uncertain for so many of our friends—on the ground in Israel/Palestine and in communities around our own country.

 

Things must change for the better. And they canif we band ever tighter together. 

Click here to join the work of Telos and make an end-of-year gift today. 

We don’t want to make light of how difficult and dangerous these days are.

 

Our friends in Gaza march ever closer to the edge of an impossible precipice. As tens of thousands continue to risk their lives protesting the tiny Strip’s closure, the United Nations reports that this ancient place—that houses nearly 2 million people, most of them children—is on the verge of catastrophic collapse. That it will be uninhabitable in just over a year.

 

Meanwhile, Israelis nearby live in fear – with no more than 15 seconds to find a shelter when sirens alert to a rocket attack. And Jewish communities in Israel and across the world fear the resurgence of overt, age-old global anti-Semitism. The recent horrific attack on worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue is a tragic reminder of the danger that follows anti-Semitic sentiments and discrimination.

 

And Palestinians elsewhere tell us that these days feel bleak at best. The Trump Administration has traded any pretense of American neutrality for outright support of Israeli expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank. With the cessation of funding to Palestinian institutions and humanitarian causes, the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, and the closure of the Palestinian mission in DC, Palestinians feel that the US is declaring their very identity irrelevant. Prospects for a viable two-state solution seem fantastical at best. And no effective, unified Palestinian leadership is casting any credible vision for a new way forward.

 

While we don’t directly control Israeli or Palestinian politics, we have seen that, for better or worse, Americans have had—and continue to have—outsized impact. From doctors to pastors, philanthropists to business leaders, and artists to homemakers, many people we know wield their money and influence to support one-sided politicians and policies that harm the dignity and humanity of the ‘other’.

 

The negative impact from passionate American constituencies can be disheartening. Yet it also means that if we are shrewd, determined, and relentless, we can—and must—write a different story. If they can impact our world, so can we.

 

This is our challenge. To change this dynamic at home. To redirect the focus and energies of our own communities. Of our neighbors. Our friends. Our family members. And eventually our leaders. From supporting the interests of only one side to protecting the fundamental rights of allespecially the most vulnerable.  

How we change this: Arm and arm with all of you. 

Such change might feel daunting today. Still we must rise. In the shadow of so many who came before us: abolitionists, civil rights leaders, democracy and human rights activists, and everyday people who risked and toiled without any credible hope of seeing success in their lifetimes. Yet it was never about them. It was about right and wrong. It was about protecting the vulnerable. The “other.” And it was the seed of their courageous sacrifices that made possible the transformative movements that blossomed generations later.

 

Just as they knew that they could not stay idle amidst violence and injustice as millions suffered, neither can we. We must marshal all our talents and energies to act both urgently and wisely.

 

We too must know that even when we cannot see the results of our efforts, that our work has purpose. Not only is it the right thing to do, but transformative change, whenever it may happen, will not be possible without people like us. Today. Not tomorrow. Striving and working. For a better world. Perhaps not imaginable today. But credible soon. If we band together.

 

In the coming weeks, we will highlight people and strategies to model and adopt. We will share stories of success and failure, and the transformation that comes out of both. We will chart a path for How We Change Thiseven in these difficult and divided times.

 

Please consider contributing your determination, your energy, and your financial partnership. For this work cannot go on without each of you.

 

We aim to raise $100,000 by the end of this year. Whether you can contribute a $5,000 gift right now, or commit to sustaining Telos with $50 a month for the next year, each dollar that you give allows us to continue building life-changing experiences in Israel/Palestine and here in the US. We invite you to join with us on this journey.

 

And thanks to the incredible generosity of some in this beloved community, we are excited to announce that every dollar of the first 50,000 that we receive will be DOUBLEDthat means that a $50 gift from you becomes $100, and $1,000 becomes $2,000.

How we change this: Arm and arm together with all of you. Together, brave, determined, and relentless.

Sincerely,

Carly, Christina, Erin, Greg, Jack, Jordan, Marina, Sharon, and Todd