Dear Reader,

As this brutal and bruising year draws to its close, I find myself turning Antonio Gramsci’s famous line over in my mind: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old world is dying, and the new world is struggling to be born.”

While the words have become tired from overuse, I still find solace in them. They give shape to the unease and uncertainty I’m carrying as winter sets in, but they also push me to reflect on the work ahead: Amid all this horror, what is the world we are trying to bring into being? And how might we get there?

At Jewish Currents, we approach these questions through rigorous reporting, in-depth analysis, and conversation with leading thinkers and activists. But we can only do that work with your support. If you support Jewish Currents through this holiday week, your gift will be matched by our board chairs Kathleen Peratis and Mark Egerman.

These days it is tempting, at least for me, to either just dwell in the horror or seek out easy distractions. After all, how much death and destruction can one look at in one week? How many conversations colored by rage can a single day contain? And how meager can one’s efforts feel, in the midst of so much violence?

These thoughts can be paralyzing—if you’re alone with them. Which is why we need each other to ask hard questions, and to challenge one another to meet the moment. Over the past year at Jewish Currents, we have strived to do just that. I think of Maya Rosen’s probing examination of American Jewish delegations’ visits to the sites of the October 7th attacks, Aparna Gopalan’s incisive analysis of the campus protest movements, and Arielle Angel’s moving reflections on Florida as the crucible of American authoritarianism. These pieces, and so many more, surface crucial questions of our moment. They demand a reckoning. But to continue this work, we need your help. Contribute today and your gift will be matched.

Since November’s election, I’ve been asked many times, “What is Jewish Currents’s plan for the next four years?” The answer is easy: We’ll continue to work as hard as we can to clarify the questions before us, to produce work that inspires us all to persevere in our commitments, and to grow the community of conscience we need in a world of so much domination and despair.

But the only way we can do any of that is together. I hope you’ll join us by contributing what you can.

In solidarity,
Daniel May
Publisher