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Two years have passed since that deadly assault of the events of October 7th, which shook world Jewry more than any event since the founding of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people the event proved deeply traumatic. For the Israeli government, it was deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist project rested on the presumption that the Jewish state would ensure against such atrocities from ever happening again.

Some form of retaliation seemed necessary. However, the particular response undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the killing and maiming of many thousands non-combatants – was a choice. And this choice made more difficult how many US Jewish community members processed the attack that triggered it, and presently makes difficult their remembrance of the day. How can someone grieve and remember a tragedy targeting their community during an atrocity done to a different population attributed to their identity?

The Complexity of Mourning

The difficulty of mourning stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus about the implications of these developments. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, this two-year period have witnessed the disintegration of a fifty-year unity on Zionism itself.

The origins of pro-Israel unity across American Jewish populations dates back to a 1915 essay authored by an attorney subsequently appointed supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; How to Solve it”. However, the agreement truly solidified after the Six-Day War during 1967. Previously, American Jewry contained a delicate yet functioning cohabitation between groups that had diverse perspectives about the need for a Jewish nation – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

That coexistence continued throughout the 1950s and 60s, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, through the non-aligned Jewish communal organization, among the opposing religious group and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head at JTS, the Zionist movement had greater religious significance instead of governmental, and he forbade the singing of Hatikvah, the national song, at religious school events during that period. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element within modern Orthodox Judaism until after the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives coexisted.

But after Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war in 1967, seizing land comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish connection with Israel underwent significant transformation. The military success, combined with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, produced an increasing conviction about the nation's critical importance within Jewish identity, and a source of pride regarding its endurance. Language concerning the remarkable quality of the outcome and the freeing of land gave Zionism a religious, almost redemptive, importance. In those heady years, much of existing hesitation about Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Writer the commentator stated: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The pro-Israel agreement left out the ultra-Orthodox – who typically thought Israel should only be established by a traditional rendering of the Messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of unaffiliated individuals. The common interpretation of the unified position, what became known as progressive Zionism, was based on a belief regarding Israel as a democratic and democratic – while majority-Jewish – state. Numerous US Jews considered the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egyptian lands following the war as temporary, believing that a solution would soon emerge that would maintain Jewish demographic dominance within Israel's original borders and neighbor recognition of the state.

Several cohorts of American Jews grew up with Zionism an essential component of their Jewish identity. Israel became an important element within religious instruction. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Summer camps were permeated with Hebrew music and education of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel and teaching US young people Israeli culture. Travel to Israel expanded and peaked via educational trips by 1999, providing no-cost visits to the nation was offered to young American Jews. Israel permeated virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, throughout these years after 1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise at religious pluralism. Acceptance and dialogue among different Jewish movements expanded.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that’s where diversity ended. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland was a given, and criticizing that perspective positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as one publication described it in writing recently.

But now, under the weight of the devastation in Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who refuse to recognize their involvement, that agreement has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer