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It has been the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, an event that profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide more than any event following the founding of the Jewish state.

Within Jewish communities the event proved deeply traumatic. For the state of Israel, it was a significant embarrassment. The entire Zionist movement had been established on the presumption that Israel could stop things like this repeating.

Some form of retaliation was inevitable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of tens of thousands of civilians – constituted a specific policy. And this choice complicated the way numerous Jewish Americans grappled with the attack that triggered it, and currently challenges their commemoration of the day. How does one grieve and remember a horrific event affecting their nation in the midst of an atrocity experienced by other individuals in your name?

The Challenge of Mourning

The difficulty surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus regarding the significance of these events. In fact, among Jewish Americans, the recent twenty-four months have experienced the collapse of a decades-long consensus on Zionism itself.

The early development of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities dates back to writings from 1915 by the lawyer and then future supreme court justice Louis Brandeis titled “Jewish Issues; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement became firmly established subsequent to the 1967 conflict that year. Before then, Jewish Americans maintained a vulnerable but enduring parallel existence across various segments that had different opinions about the necessity for Israel – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

This parallel existence persisted throughout the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of Jewish socialism, within the neutral American Jewish Committee, among the opposing Jewish organization and comparable entities. For Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Zionism had greater religious significance rather than political, and he forbade singing the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations during that period. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities until after that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

Yet after Israel defeated neighboring countries in that war that year, seizing land including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish relationship to the country underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, coupled with longstanding fears regarding repeated persecution, produced a growing belief regarding Israel's critical importance within Jewish identity, and created pride in its resilience. Discourse concerning the “miraculous” nature of the outcome and the reclaiming of territory assigned the movement a religious, almost redemptive, meaning. In those heady years, a significant portion of existing hesitation about Zionism disappeared. During the seventies, Writer Norman Podhoretz declared: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Unity and Its Boundaries

The unified position left out strictly Orthodox communities – who typically thought Israel should only be ushered in by a traditional rendering of redemption – but united Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The predominant version of the consensus, later termed progressive Zionism, was based on the idea regarding Israel as a progressive and liberal – while majority-Jewish – nation. Numerous US Jews viewed the administration of Palestinian, Syria's and Egyptian lands following the war as not permanent, assuming that a solution would soon emerge that would guarantee a Jewish majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Multiple generations of American Jews were thus brought up with support for Israel an essential component of their identity as Jews. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. National symbols adorned many temples. Summer camps integrated with Israeli songs and learning of the language, with Israelis visiting instructing American youth Israeli customs. Trips to the nation expanded and peaked through Birthright programs by 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel became available to young American Jews. The state affected virtually all areas of Jewish American identity.

Evolving Situation

Interestingly, in these decades post-1967, American Jewry grew skilled regarding denominational coexistence. Open-mindedness and dialogue among different Jewish movements expanded.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – there existed diversity ended. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and questioning that perspective categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as a Jewish periodical termed it in writing recently.

However currently, during of the devastation of Gaza, food shortages, child casualties and outrage over the denial by numerous Jewish individuals who refuse to recognize their responsibility, that agreement has broken down. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer