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Marking two years after that mass murder of the events of October 7th, which profoundly impacted global Jewish populations unlike anything else since the creation of the state of Israel.

Within Jewish communities it was profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist movement had been established on the belief that the Jewish state would ensure against things like this repeating.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. However, the particular response Israel pursued – the obliteration of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of civilians – represented a decision. And this choice complicated how many American Jews grappled with the initial assault that triggered it, and currently challenges their remembrance of the day. How can someone honor and reflect on a horrific event against your people while simultaneously devastation experienced by another people connected to their community?

The Difficulty of Mourning

The challenge in grieving stems from the reality that there is no consensus as to the significance of these events. Indeed, among Jewish Americans, the recent twenty-four months have experienced the breakdown of a fifty-year unity on Zionism itself.

The origins of a Zionist consensus within US Jewish communities can be traced to a 1915 essay by the lawyer and then future high court jurist Louis Brandeis named “Jewish Issues; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold subsequent to the Six-Day War in 1967. Before then, American Jewry housed a vulnerable but enduring cohabitation among different factions that had different opinions concerning the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence continued throughout the 1950s and 60s, through surviving aspects of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, within the critical American Council for Judaism and comparable entities. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, Zionism had greater religious significance rather than political, and he forbade singing Hatikvah, Hatikvah, at religious school events in the early 1960s. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to that war. Alternative Jewish perspectives remained present.

However following Israel defeated adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict that year, seizing land such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with the country changed dramatically. The military success, along with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, resulted in a developing perspective in the country’s essential significance to the Jewish people, and generated admiration for its strength. Language regarding the remarkable quality of the outcome and the freeing of areas gave the movement a spiritual, even messianic, significance. During that enthusiastic period, considerable existing hesitation about Zionism disappeared. In the early 1970s, Writer the commentator famously proclaimed: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The Zionist consensus left out the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a nation should only emerge via conventional understanding of the Messiah – yet included Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and the majority of unaffiliated individuals. The common interpretation of this agreement, later termed progressive Zionism, was founded on the conviction about the nation as a progressive and free – though Jewish-centered – state. Many American Jews viewed the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egypt's territories post-1967 as provisional, assuming that an agreement would soon emerge that would ensure Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Multiple generations of US Jews grew up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Israel’s Independence Day became a Jewish holiday. Blue and white banners decorated most synagogues. Youth programs integrated with national melodies and education of contemporary Hebrew, with visitors from Israel instructing American teenagers Israeli culture. Travel to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel was provided to US Jewish youth. The state affected nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Shifting Landscape

Paradoxically, during this period after 1967, Jewish Americans became adept at religious pluralism. Acceptance and discussion among different Jewish movements expanded.

However regarding support for Israel – that represented tolerance reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and criticizing that perspective positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – outside the community, as a Jewish periodical labeled it in a piece in 2021.

However currently, under the weight of the ruin in Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and frustration regarding the refusal by numerous Jewish individuals who decline to acknowledge their responsibility, that agreement has disintegrated. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer