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Two years have passed since that deadly assault of the events of October 7th, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide like no other occurrence since the founding of the Jewish state.

For Jews the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project rested on the belief that the nation would ensure against such atrocities from ever happening again.

Military action seemed necessary. Yet the chosen course undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the killing and maiming of numerous non-combatants – represented a decision. And this choice complicated how many US Jewish community members processed the initial assault that precipitated the response, and currently challenges the community's remembrance of that date. In what way can people grieve and remember an atrocity affecting their nation in the midst of an atrocity done to other individuals in your name?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The difficulty of mourning exists because of the circumstance where there is no consensus about the implications of these developments. Actually, for the American Jewish community, the last two years have witnessed the disintegration of a decades-long agreement on Zionism itself.

The origins of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations dates back to a 1915 essay authored by an attorney who would later become supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold after the Six-Day War in 1967. Earlier, American Jewry contained a fragile but stable coexistence among different factions which maintained different opinions concerning the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

That coexistence endured throughout the post-war decades, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral US Jewish group, within the critical Jewish organization and other organizations. For Louis Finkelstein, the leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pro-Israel ideology was more spiritual instead of governmental, and he did not permit performance of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Nor were Zionist ideology the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities before the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives coexisted.

Yet after Israel routed its neighbors in the six-day war during that period, occupying territories comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on Israel underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, coupled with persistent concerns about another genocide, produced an increasing conviction in the country’s critical importance within Jewish identity, and generated admiration regarding its endurance. Discourse about the “miraculous” aspect of the outcome and the freeing of territory assigned the Zionist project a religious, potentially salvific, importance. In that triumphant era, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence regarding Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz declared: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Consensus and Its Boundaries

The unified position left out strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a Jewish state should only be ushered in by a traditional rendering of the Messiah – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The most popular form of this agreement, later termed liberal Zionism, was founded on a belief in Israel as a liberal and free – while majority-Jewish – nation. Numerous US Jews viewed the control of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as provisional, believing that a solution was forthcoming that would guarantee Jewish population majority in Israel proper and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Two generations of American Jews grew up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their Jewish identity. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners decorated religious institutions. Summer camps integrated with Hebrew music and learning of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American teenagers national traditions. Visits to Israel grew and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs during that year, providing no-cost visits to Israel was provided to US Jewish youth. The state affected virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.

Shifting Landscape

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise in religious diversity. Tolerance and discussion across various Jewish groups increased.

However regarding Zionism and Israel – that’s where tolerance ended. You could be a right-leaning advocate or a liberal advocate, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland was a given, and questioning that narrative placed you outside mainstream views – a non-conformist, as one publication described it in writing in 2021.

However currently, during of the devastation in Gaza, food shortages, child casualties and outrage regarding the refusal of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their involvement, that unity has disintegrated. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer