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It has been the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, which profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide like no other occurrence following the creation of the Jewish state.

For Jews it was deeply traumatic. For the state of Israel, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist project rested on the assumption that Israel would prevent such atrocities occurring in the future.

A response seemed necessary. But the response undertaken by Israel – the obliteration of Gaza, the casualties of numerous ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This selected path complicated the perspective of many American Jews grappled with the initial assault that triggered it, and presently makes difficult the community's commemoration of the anniversary. How does one honor and reflect on a tragedy affecting their nation while simultaneously a catastrophe done to a different population attributed to their identity?

The Complexity of Mourning

The challenge of mourning stems from the circumstance where little unity prevails about the implications of these developments. Indeed, among Jewish Americans, this two-year period have experienced the collapse of a fifty-year unity on Zionism itself.

The early development of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities can be traced to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis named “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the six-day war in 1967. Earlier, American Jewry maintained a fragile but stable parallel existence across various segments which maintained different opinions concerning the need for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence endured during the post-war decades, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, through the non-aligned US Jewish group, among the opposing religious group and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pro-Israel ideology was more spiritual instead of governmental, and he prohibited the singing of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, during seminary ceremonies in the early 1960s. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece of Modern Orthodoxy until after that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

Yet after Israel defeated neighboring countries during the 1967 conflict during that period, taking control of areas including Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish perspective on the nation underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, combined with persistent concerns about another genocide, resulted in a growing belief in the country’s essential significance for Jewish communities, and created pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric regarding the “miraculous” aspect of the victory and the “liberation” of areas gave the movement a religious, even messianic, importance. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation regarding Zionism dissipated. In that decade, Writer Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Unity and Its Limits

The Zionist consensus left out Haredi Jews – who largely believed a Jewish state should only emerge via conventional understanding of redemption – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The most popular form of the consensus, what became known as left-leaning Zionism, was founded on the idea regarding Israel as a progressive and democratic – while majority-Jewish – nation. Numerous US Jews viewed the occupation of local, Syrian and Egypt's territories following the war as temporary, assuming that a solution would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Several cohorts of US Jews were thus brought up with Zionism an essential component of their religious identity. Israel became a central part in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. Israeli flags decorated most synagogues. Youth programs integrated with Israeli songs and the study of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American teenagers Israeli culture. Visits to Israel grew and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs during that year, when a free trip to the nation was offered to US Jewish youth. The state affected nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, during this period following the war, Jewish Americans became adept regarding denominational coexistence. Acceptance and discussion across various Jewish groups grew.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that’s where tolerance reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and challenging that perspective categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – an “Un-Jew”, as a Jewish periodical termed it in writing recently.

But now, amid of the ruin of Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that unity has disintegrated. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer