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It has been that horrific attack of the events of October 7th, which shook global Jewish populations more than any event following the founding of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people the event proved shocking. For the state of Israel, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist endeavor rested on the assumption which held that the Jewish state would ensure against things like this from ever happening again.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. But the response undertaken by Israel – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice created complexity in the perspective of many Jewish Americans grappled with the initial assault that set it in motion, and it now complicates the community's observance of that date. How can someone mourn and commemorate a tragedy affecting their nation during an atrocity being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?

The Challenge of Grieving

The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where no agreement exists about the significance of these events. In fact, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have witnessed the breakdown of a decades-long consensus on Zionism itself.

The early development of a Zionist consensus among American Jewry can be traced to an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney and then future high court jurist Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold after the six-day war that year. Earlier, US Jewish communities contained a delicate yet functioning cohabitation across various segments that had diverse perspectives about the requirement for Israel – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence continued through the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of socialist Jewish movements, through the non-aligned American Jewish Committee, among the opposing Jewish organization and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Zionist movement was primarily theological instead of governmental, and he did not permit singing Israel's anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations in those years. Nor were support for Israel the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy before that war. Different Jewish identity models remained present.

But after Israel overcame its neighbors during the 1967 conflict during that period, taking control of areas including Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on the country evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, along with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, led to an increasing conviction regarding Israel's essential significance to the Jewish people, and created pride for its strength. Discourse regarding the “miraculous” quality of the victory and the freeing of areas assigned the movement a spiritual, potentially salvific, meaning. In those heady years, much of previous uncertainty regarding Zionism vanished. During the seventies, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The pro-Israel agreement did not include Haredi Jews – who largely believed Israel should only be ushered in through traditional interpretation of the messiah – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The most popular form of the consensus, identified as liberal Zionism, was founded on the idea regarding Israel as a progressive and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – state. Numerous US Jews considered the control of local, Syria's and Egyptian lands post-1967 as not permanent, assuming that a solution was forthcoming that would ensure Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and neighbor recognition of the state.

Multiple generations of Jewish Americans grew up with pro-Israel ideology an essential component of their identity as Jews. The state transformed into a central part in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut evolved into a religious observance. Israeli flags adorned many temples. Summer camps were permeated with Hebrew music and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American youth national traditions. Trips to the nation increased and peaked through Birthright programs by 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel became available to US Jewish youth. The state affected almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, Jewish Americans grew skilled in religious diversity. Open-mindedness and dialogue between Jewish denominations expanded.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that represented diversity found its boundary. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish homeland was a given, and questioning that position positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – outside the community, as one publication termed it in a piece recently.

But now, during of the destruction of Gaza, famine, child casualties and outrage regarding the refusal of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their responsibility, that unity has disintegrated. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer