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Marking two years after that horrific attack of October 7, 2023, which shook world Jewry more than any event following the establishment of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people it was deeply traumatic. For the Israeli government, it was a significant embarrassment. The entire Zionist movement rested on the presumption which held that the nation could stop such atrocities occurring in the future.

Military action was inevitable. Yet the chosen course that Israel implemented – the obliteration of the Gaza Strip, the killing and maiming of tens of thousands non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. This selected path made more difficult how many Jewish Americans understood the attack that triggered it, and currently challenges their commemoration of the anniversary. How does one mourn and commemorate an atrocity against your people during a catastrophe being inflicted upon other individuals connected to their community?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The difficulty of mourning stems from the reality that there is no consensus regarding what any of this means. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, the last two years have witnessed the breakdown of a fifty-year consensus regarding Zionism.

The early development of a Zionist consensus within US Jewish communities can be traced to an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed supreme court justice Louis Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold subsequent to the six-day war during 1967. Previously, US Jewish communities contained a delicate yet functioning parallel existence between groups that had different opinions regarding the need of a Jewish state – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

This parallel existence endured during the post-war decades, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, through the non-aligned US Jewish group, within the critical American Council for Judaism and comparable entities. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor at JTS, Zionism was primarily theological rather than political, and he did not permit singing Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, at religious school events in those years. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the central focus within modern Orthodox Judaism until after the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models coexisted.

Yet after Israel routed its neighbors in that war that year, taking control of areas such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with the country evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, along with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, led to a growing belief regarding Israel's vital role to the Jewish people, and generated admiration in its resilience. Language regarding the remarkable quality of the outcome and the reclaiming of land provided the Zionist project a spiritual, potentially salvific, importance. In those heady years, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel disappeared. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The unified position excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only emerge through traditional interpretation of redemption – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The predominant version of the consensus, identified as liberal Zionism, was established on the idea in Israel as a liberal and democratic – though Jewish-centered – country. Numerous US Jews saw the administration of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands following the war as temporary, assuming that a resolution was forthcoming that would ensure Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and regional acceptance of the nation.

Multiple generations of Jewish Americans were raised with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The state transformed into a central part of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut evolved into a religious observance. National symbols adorned religious institutions. Seasonal activities were permeated with Hebrew music and learning of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel educating American teenagers national traditions. Visits to Israel increased and peaked via educational trips in 1999, providing no-cost visits to the country became available to young American Jews. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Evolving Situation

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, Jewish Americans became adept in religious diversity. Acceptance and discussion among different Jewish movements grew.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that’s where pluralism ended. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland was a given, and questioning that perspective categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – outside the community, as one publication labeled it in an essay that year.

But now, under the weight of the ruin of Gaza, food shortages, child casualties and frustration over the denial within Jewish communities who avoid admitting their complicity, that agreement has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer