🔗 Share this article

Two years have passed since that mass murder of October 7, 2023, an event that deeply affected world Jewry like no other occurrence following the founding of the state of Israel.

For Jews it was profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, it was a significant embarrassment. The entire Zionist project was founded on the assumption which held that Israel would ensure against similar tragedies occurring in the future.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the obliteration of Gaza, the killing and maiming of numerous ordinary people – was a choice. This selected path made more difficult the perspective of many Jewish Americans understood the attack that precipitated the response, and it now complicates their commemoration of the day. How can someone grieve and remember an atrocity against your people in the midst of a catastrophe done to a different population attributed to their identity?

The Difficulty of Mourning

The difficulty of mourning lies in the circumstance where little unity prevails regarding what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the last two years have experienced the disintegration of a fifty-year agreement regarding Zionism.

The beginnings of Zionist agreement among American Jewry dates back to a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed supreme court justice Justice Brandeis named “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the Six-Day War that year. Earlier, US Jewish communities contained a vulnerable but enduring coexistence between groups that had different opinions concerning the requirement of a Jewish state – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence persisted through the 1950s and 60s, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, through the non-aligned American Jewish Committee, in the anti-Zionist Jewish organization and comparable entities. For Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Zionist movement had greater religious significance than political, and he prohibited singing Israel's anthem, the national song, at religious school events in the early 1960s. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities until after the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives existed alongside.

However following Israel defeated its neighbors in the six-day war in 1967, occupying territories comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, US Jewish connection with the country evolved considerably. The military success, combined with longstanding fears about another genocide, led to a growing belief about the nation's essential significance for Jewish communities, and created pride in its resilience. Discourse about the “miraculous” quality of the victory and the reclaiming of areas provided Zionism a theological, even messianic, importance. In those heady years, a significant portion of existing hesitation toward Israel disappeared. In that decade, Publication editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Consensus and Restrictions

The unified position left out Haredi Jews – who generally maintained a nation should only be ushered in by a traditional rendering of redemption – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The most popular form of the consensus, later termed liberal Zionism, was based on a belief in Israel as a progressive and liberal – while majority-Jewish – nation. Countless Jewish Americans considered the control of Arab, Syrian and Egyptian lands after 1967 as not permanent, assuming that an agreement was forthcoming that would maintain a Jewish majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of the state.

Several cohorts of US Jews were thus brought up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Israeli national day became a Jewish holiday. National symbols adorned many temples. Seasonal activities were permeated with national melodies and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting educating US young people Israeli customs. Travel to Israel increased and peaked through Birthright programs by 1999, when a free trip to the nation was offered to Jewish young adults. The state affected almost the entirety of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Ironically, in these decades after 1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise in religious diversity. Open-mindedness and dialogue among different Jewish movements grew.

Except when it came to support for Israel – there existed pluralism reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a liberal advocate, however endorsement of the nation as a majority-Jewish country remained unquestioned, and challenging that narrative categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as Tablet magazine termed it in an essay recently.

Yet presently, during of the devastation in Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and anger about the rejection within Jewish communities who avoid admitting their responsibility, that consensus has disintegrated. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer