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It has been the deadly assault of the events of October 7th, an event that shook Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the establishment of the state of Israel.

Within Jewish communities the event proved deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project was founded on the belief which held that the Jewish state would prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again.

A response was inevitable. Yet the chosen course undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of the Gaza Strip, the killing and maiming of many thousands non-combatants – was a choice. And this choice complicated the way numerous Jewish Americans processed the initial assault that triggered it, and presently makes difficult their observance of the anniversary. How can someone grieve and remember a tragedy targeting their community during an atrocity being inflicted upon other individuals attributed to their identity?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The challenge surrounding remembrance lies in the circumstance where little unity prevails about the implications of these developments. In fact, among Jewish Americans, this two-year period have seen the disintegration of a fifty-year agreement on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity across American Jewish populations extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer subsequently appointed high court jurist Louis Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. But the consensus truly solidified following the Six-Day War in 1967. Previously, American Jewry contained a fragile but stable parallel existence among different factions which maintained a range of views regarding the need of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

This parallel existence continued during the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and other organizations. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, pro-Israel ideology had greater religious significance than political, and he prohibited the singing of Israel's anthem, the Israeli national anthem, during seminary ceremonies in the early 1960s. Additionally, support for Israel the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy before the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives coexisted.

Yet after Israel routed neighboring countries in that war that year, seizing land including the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, US Jewish connection with the country changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, combined with persistent concerns about another genocide, resulted in a developing perspective in the country’s critical importance for Jewish communities, and generated admiration in its resilience. Rhetoric concerning the extraordinary aspect of the outcome and the freeing of areas provided the Zionist project a spiritual, almost redemptive, importance. During that enthusiastic period, a significant portion of existing hesitation toward Israel vanished. In that decade, Publication editor Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The pro-Israel agreement excluded strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only be ushered in via conventional understanding of redemption – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of unaffiliated individuals. The most popular form of the consensus, identified as liberal Zionism, was based on the conviction about the nation as a democratic and free – while majority-Jewish – country. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the administration of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands post-1967 as temporary, thinking that an agreement was imminent that would ensure a Jewish majority in Israel proper and neighbor recognition of the nation.

Two generations of Jewish Americans were raised with support for Israel a core part of their religious identity. Israel became a central part of Jewish education. Israeli national day turned into a celebration. National symbols decorated religious institutions. Seasonal activities integrated with Hebrew music and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching US young people national traditions. Trips to the nation grew and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, when a free trip to the country became available to young American Jews. The nation influenced virtually all areas of Jewish American identity.

Shifting Landscape

Paradoxically, in these decades following the war, American Jewry developed expertise regarding denominational coexistence. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups expanded.

Except when it came to support for Israel – that represented pluralism found its boundary. You could be a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a majority-Jewish country was assumed, and challenging that narrative positioned you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as a Jewish periodical termed it in writing that year.

Yet presently, under the weight of the devastation in Gaza, starvation, child casualties and anger over the denial by numerous Jewish individuals who refuse to recognize their complicity, that agreement has broken down. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer