🔗 Share this article

Two years have passed since the mass murder of October 7, 2023, an event that deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the creation of the state of Israel.

Within Jewish communities it was profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The whole Zionist project rested on the belief which held that Israel would ensure against such atrocities repeating.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. But the response that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the casualties of tens of thousands non-combatants – represented a decision. And this choice created complexity in the perspective of many US Jewish community members understood the October 7th events that triggered it, and it now complicates their observance of that date. How can someone grieve and remember a horrific event targeting their community in the midst of devastation being inflicted upon another people connected to their community?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the reality that little unity prevails regarding the significance of these events. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the collapse of a fifty-year agreement on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations extends as far back as a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. Yet the unity truly solidified subsequent to the 1967 conflict in 1967. Before then, Jewish Americans housed a delicate yet functioning parallel existence between groups which maintained a range of views concerning the requirement for a Jewish nation – Zionists, non-Zionists and opponents.

Previous Developments

Such cohabitation continued throughout the post-war decades, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, within the critical religious group and other organizations. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, Zionism had greater religious significance than political, and he forbade performance of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities until after that war. Different Jewish identity models remained present.

Yet after Israel routed adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict during that period, taking control of areas including the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with Israel underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, along with enduring anxieties about another genocide, led to a growing belief regarding Israel's essential significance to the Jewish people, and created pride for its strength. Discourse concerning the remarkable nature of the victory and the “liberation” of land assigned the Zionist project a spiritual, even messianic, significance. In those heady years, much of previous uncertainty regarding Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Writer Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Consensus and Its Boundaries

The pro-Israel agreement did not include the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the messiah – however joined Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and the majority of unaffiliated individuals. The most popular form of the consensus, later termed liberal Zionism, was based on a belief regarding Israel as a progressive and liberal – albeit ethnocentric – nation. Countless Jewish Americans saw the administration of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as provisional, thinking that an agreement was imminent that would ensure a Jewish majority in pre-1967 Israel and regional acceptance of the nation.

Multiple generations of Jewish Americans were raised with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became a central part in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Summer camps became infused with national melodies and learning of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel instructing American teenagers Israeli culture. Travel to Israel increased and peaked with Birthright Israel by 1999, when a free trip to the nation was provided to Jewish young adults. The state affected almost the entirety of US Jewish life.

Changing Dynamics

Ironically, throughout these years following the war, US Jewish communities grew skilled at religious pluralism. Acceptance and discussion among different Jewish movements grew.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – there existed diversity reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and questioning that narrative positioned you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as Tablet magazine termed it in an essay that year.

But now, under the weight of the devastation in Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and outrage over the denial of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their involvement, that consensus has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer