🔗 Share this article

Marking two years after the deadly assault of October 7, 2023, which shook global Jewish populations unlike anything else following the establishment of Israel as a nation.

Within Jewish communities it was deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project had been established on the presumption which held that the Jewish state would prevent things like this from ever happening again.

Military action was inevitable. However, the particular response undertaken by Israel – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of tens of thousands of civilians – constituted a specific policy. This selected path complicated the perspective of many US Jewish community members understood the initial assault that set it in motion, and it now complicates the community's commemoration of the day. In what way can people mourn and commemorate an atrocity against your people while simultaneously devastation experienced by a different population in your name?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The challenge of mourning stems from the circumstance where little unity prevails as to what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the last two years have experienced the disintegration of a half-century-old agreement about the Zionist movement.

The beginnings of Zionist agreement among American Jewry can be traced to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar who would later become high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis titled “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement became firmly established after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Earlier, American Jewry maintained a fragile but stable parallel existence between groups holding different opinions concerning the need of a Jewish state – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

Such cohabitation continued through the 1950s and 60s, in remnants of Jewish socialism, through the non-aligned American Jewish Committee, within the critical Jewish organization and comparable entities. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was primarily theological rather than political, and he forbade the singing of Israel's anthem, the national song, at religious school events during that period. Additionally, support for Israel the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities before the six-day war. Alternative Jewish perspectives coexisted.

Yet after Israel overcame adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict that year, seizing land such as Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the country evolved considerably. The military success, along with enduring anxieties regarding repeated persecution, produced an increasing conviction in the country’s vital role within Jewish identity, and created pride regarding its endurance. Discourse regarding the remarkable quality of the victory and the freeing of land assigned Zionism a theological, almost redemptive, significance. In that triumphant era, considerable existing hesitation about Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Unity and Its Boundaries

The pro-Israel agreement left out Haredi Jews – who generally maintained Israel should only be ushered in through traditional interpretation of redemption – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all non-affiliated Jews. The common interpretation of the consensus, what became known as liberal Zionism, was established on a belief in Israel as a progressive and free – albeit ethnocentric – state. Many American Jews saw the occupation of Arab, Syria's and Egyptian lands after 1967 as provisional, thinking that a solution was imminent that would guarantee a Jewish majority within Israel's original borders and neighbor recognition of the state.

Multiple generations of Jewish Americans were raised with support for Israel a core part of their religious identity. Israel became a key component in Jewish learning. Israeli national day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners decorated most synagogues. Seasonal activities became infused with national melodies and education of contemporary Hebrew, with Israeli guests instructing American youth Israeli culture. Trips to the nation increased and peaked with Birthright Israel by 1999, offering complimentary travel to the nation was offered to Jewish young adults. The state affected virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, throughout these years following the war, US Jewish communities developed expertise in religious diversity. Tolerance and communication between Jewish denominations increased.

Except when it came to the Israeli situation – there existed pluralism ended. You could be a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and challenging that position placed you beyond accepted boundaries – an “Un-Jew”, as one publication labeled it in writing in 2021.

Yet presently, amid of the devastation within Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and frustration about the rejection of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their complicity, that unity has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer