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Marking two years after the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, which profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the founding of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, it was a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project was founded on the assumption which held that the Jewish state would prevent similar tragedies occurring in the future.

A response appeared unavoidable. But the response undertaken by Israel – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. This particular approach complicated how many Jewish Americans grappled with the attack that precipitated the response, and it now complicates their observance of that date. In what way can people grieve and remember an atrocity affecting their nation during an atrocity being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The complexity of mourning stems from the reality that little unity prevails about the significance of these events. Actually, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have witnessed the disintegration of a fifty-year unity regarding Zionism.

The origins of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities dates back to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar who would later become Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement truly solidified after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Before then, US Jewish communities maintained a vulnerable but enduring cohabitation among different factions which maintained a range of views concerning the requirement for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and opponents.

Background Information

Such cohabitation continued during the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, within the critical American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, the Zionist movement was more spiritual rather than political, and he did not permit performance of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, during seminary ceremonies in the early 1960s. Nor were Zionist ideology the main element within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.

Yet after Israel defeated adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict in 1967, seizing land such as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish perspective on the nation evolved considerably. The military success, along with longstanding fears regarding repeated persecution, resulted in an increasing conviction regarding Israel's critical importance within Jewish identity, and created pride for its strength. Rhetoric regarding the extraordinary aspect of the outcome and the “liberation” of areas provided the Zionist project a theological, almost redemptive, meaning. In those heady years, a significant portion of existing hesitation regarding Zionism dissipated. During the seventies, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The unified position left out Haredi Jews – who largely believed a nation should only emerge via conventional understanding of the messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The predominant version of this agreement, identified as left-leaning Zionism, was founded on a belief in Israel as a liberal and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – state. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the control of Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian lands following the war as provisional, believing that a resolution was imminent that would ensure Jewish demographic dominance in Israel proper and regional acceptance of the state.

Two generations of American Jews grew up with support for Israel an essential component of their identity as Jews. The nation became an important element in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day became a Jewish holiday. National symbols decorated most synagogues. Summer camps were permeated with national melodies and learning of the language, with Israeli guests educating American teenagers Israeli culture. Trips to the nation increased and achieved record numbers with Birthright Israel by 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel became available to US Jewish youth. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Shifting Landscape

Paradoxically, in these decades post-1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise at religious pluralism. Tolerance and discussion among different Jewish movements expanded.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that’s where tolerance found its boundary. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a majority-Jewish country was assumed, and challenging that narrative placed you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as one publication described it in writing recently.

But now, amid of the destruction in Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and anger over the denial within Jewish communities who avoid admitting their complicity, that consensus has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer