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Marking two years after that mass murder of 7 October 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else following the founding of Israel as a nation.

For Jews it was profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist endeavor was founded on the presumption which held that Israel would ensure against such atrocities from ever happening again.

Military action appeared unavoidable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the killing and maiming of many thousands ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This selected path created complexity in the way numerous Jewish Americans processed the attack that set it in motion, and it now complicates their commemoration of that date. How can someone grieve and remember an atrocity targeting their community in the midst of a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?

The Challenge of Mourning

The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus regarding the significance of these events. Actually, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have experienced the breakdown of a fifty-year agreement regarding Zionism.

The origins of a Zionist consensus among American Jewry dates back to a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar and then future high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. But the consensus truly solidified after the Six-Day War in 1967. Before then, American Jewry maintained a fragile but stable parallel existence among different factions that had different opinions regarding the necessity for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

This parallel existence continued through the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral US Jewish group, among the opposing Jewish organization and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head at JTS, Zionism had greater religious significance rather than political, and he prohibited the singing of the Israeli national anthem, the national song, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the 1967 conflict. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

Yet after Israel overcame neighboring countries during the 1967 conflict during that period, occupying territories comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on the nation underwent significant transformation. The military success, combined with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, led to a developing perspective about the nation's essential significance within Jewish identity, and a source of pride regarding its endurance. Language concerning the “miraculous” aspect of the outcome and the freeing of territory provided the Zionist project a religious, even messianic, significance. In that triumphant era, considerable previous uncertainty about Zionism dissipated. During the seventies, Publication editor the commentator stated: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The pro-Israel agreement did not include strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a nation should only be established through traditional interpretation of the Messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all non-affiliated Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, identified as left-leaning Zionism, was based on the idea in Israel as a democratic and liberal – while majority-Jewish – country. Numerous US Jews saw the administration of Arab, Syrian and Egyptian lands following the war as not permanent, thinking that an agreement would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and regional acceptance of the state.

Several cohorts of American Jews grew up with Zionism a core part of their religious identity. Israel became a key component of Jewish education. Israel’s Independence Day turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners adorned most synagogues. Summer camps integrated with national melodies and learning of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American youth Israeli customs. Travel to Israel grew and peaked via educational trips during that year, offering complimentary travel to Israel became available to US Jewish youth. Israel permeated almost the entirety of US Jewish life.

Shifting Landscape

Interestingly, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry developed expertise in religious diversity. Acceptance and discussion among different Jewish movements increased.

However regarding the Israeli situation – that’s where pluralism reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a leftwing Zionist, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish state was assumed, and challenging that position categorized you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as one publication labeled it in an essay recently.

Yet presently, amid of the ruin in Gaza, famine, young victims and anger regarding the refusal by numerous Jewish individuals who decline to acknowledge their responsibility, that consensus has disintegrated. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer