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Two years have passed since that deadly assault of October 7, 2023, an event that profoundly impacted global Jewish populations unlike anything else following the founding of the Jewish state.

For Jews the event proved profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The whole Zionist endeavor was founded on the presumption that Israel would ensure against similar tragedies from ever happening again.

Military action appeared unavoidable. However, the particular response undertaken by Israel – the obliteration of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of many thousands non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. And this choice created complexity in how many US Jewish community members understood the attack that precipitated the response, and presently makes difficult the community's remembrance of the anniversary. How can someone honor and reflect on an atrocity targeting their community during a catastrophe experienced by a different population attributed to their identity?

The Complexity of Grieving

The complexity surrounding remembrance exists because of the fact that there is no consensus regarding the implications of these developments. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, this two-year period have seen the disintegration of a fifty-year agreement about the Zionist movement.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities can be traced to writings from 1915 authored by an attorney and then future Supreme Court judge Louis D. Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. Yet the unity became firmly established subsequent to the six-day war in 1967. Previously, US Jewish communities contained a delicate yet functioning cohabitation among different factions which maintained diverse perspectives regarding the necessity of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and opponents.

Background Information

This parallel existence continued during the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was primarily theological rather than political, and he did not permit singing Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, during seminary ceremonies in those years. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities prior to that war. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.

Yet after Israel overcame adjacent nations in the six-day war in 1967, seizing land such as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish perspective on Israel changed dramatically. The military success, coupled with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, resulted in a growing belief in the country’s vital role for Jewish communities, and generated admiration in its resilience. Discourse concerning the “miraculous” quality of the outcome and the freeing of land provided the movement a religious, almost redemptive, significance. In that triumphant era, much of the remaining ambivalence about Zionism dissipated. In that decade, Publication editor the commentator declared: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The pro-Israel agreement excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a nation should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the Messiah – but united Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and most secular Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, what became known as liberal Zionism, was based on a belief in Israel as a democratic and democratic – though Jewish-centered – country. Many American Jews saw the control of Palestinian, Syrian and Egypt's territories after 1967 as not permanent, assuming that an agreement would soon emerge that would maintain Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Several cohorts of American Jews were raised with Zionism a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. Israel became a key component of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. National symbols were displayed in many temples. Summer camps became infused with national melodies and education of contemporary Hebrew, with visitors from Israel and teaching American teenagers Israeli customs. Visits to Israel increased and peaked via educational trips by 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel was provided to US Jewish youth. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of the American Jewish experience.

Shifting Landscape

Ironically, throughout these years post-1967, US Jewish communities became adept regarding denominational coexistence. Acceptance and communication between Jewish denominations expanded.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – that’s where pluralism ended. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a progressive supporter, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland was a given, and criticizing that perspective placed you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as one publication described it in an essay recently.

But now, during of the ruin within Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and outrage over the denial within Jewish communities who avoid admitting their complicity, that unity has collapsed. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer