🔗 Share this article

Two years have passed since that horrific attack of the events of October 7th, an event that profoundly impacted global Jewish populations unlike anything else following the creation of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people the event proved shocking. For Israel as a nation, it was deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist movement had been established on the belief that the Jewish state would prevent similar tragedies occurring in the future.

Military action was inevitable. However, the particular response undertaken by Israel – the obliteration of Gaza, the casualties of numerous non-combatants – was a choice. This particular approach made more difficult the way numerous American Jews understood the attack that triggered it, and it now complicates their remembrance of the day. How can someone grieve and remember a horrific event targeting their community while simultaneously an atrocity done to another people in your name?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The difficulty in grieving lies in the reality that little unity prevails as to the significance of these events. In fact, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the disintegration of a decades-long agreement about the Zionist movement.

The origins of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities dates back to an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer who would later become high court jurist Justice Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement truly solidified subsequent to the 1967 conflict in 1967. Earlier, Jewish Americans contained a vulnerable but enduring coexistence between groups holding a range of views regarding the necessity for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and opponents.

Previous Developments

That coexistence endured through the post-war decades, within remaining elements of leftist Jewish organizations, within the neutral US Jewish group, among the opposing American Council for Judaism and other organizations. For Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, pro-Israel ideology was primarily theological than political, and he prohibited singing Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in those years. Furthermore, Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models coexisted.

However following Israel overcame adjacent nations in the six-day war in 1967, occupying territories including Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish perspective on Israel underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, coupled with enduring anxieties of a “second Holocaust”, led to an increasing conviction regarding Israel's vital role to the Jewish people, and generated admiration in its resilience. Rhetoric regarding the extraordinary quality of the victory and the “liberation” of territory assigned Zionism a spiritual, even messianic, meaning. In those heady years, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence regarding Zionism dissipated. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz stated: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Boundaries

The Zionist consensus left out strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a Jewish state should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the Messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, later termed liberal Zionism, was established on the conviction about the nation as a liberal and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – country. Many American Jews saw the occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Egypt's territories after 1967 as temporary, assuming that a solution was imminent that would guarantee a Jewish majority within Israel's original borders and regional acceptance of the nation.

Several cohorts of Jewish Americans were thus brought up with Zionism a core part of their Jewish identity. The state transformed into a central part in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day turned into a celebration. Israeli flags decorated religious institutions. Summer camps integrated with Hebrew music and the study of the language, with Israelis visiting instructing American youth Israeli customs. Visits to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, when a free trip to the nation was offered to Jewish young adults. The nation influenced almost the entirety of US Jewish life.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, during this period after 1967, American Jewry became adept in religious diversity. Tolerance and discussion among different Jewish movements expanded.

Except when it came to support for Israel – that represented pluralism found its boundary. You could be a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and challenging that perspective positioned you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as Tablet magazine labeled it in a piece in 2021.

However currently, under the weight of the ruin of Gaza, famine, young victims and outrage about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who refuse to recognize their responsibility, that unity has collapsed. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer