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Marking two years after that deadly assault of 7 October 2023, an event that shook Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else following the founding of the Jewish state.

Within Jewish communities it was deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, it was a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist endeavor was founded on the belief that the nation would ensure against similar tragedies from ever happening again.

A response was inevitable. Yet the chosen course undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of numerous non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. This particular approach complicated how many American Jews grappled with the October 7th events that precipitated the response, and currently challenges their remembrance of the day. How does one honor and reflect on a tragedy targeting their community during a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population in your name?

The Difficulty of Mourning

The complexity in grieving stems from the fact that little unity prevails about the significance of these events. Actually, for the American Jewish community, the last two years have seen the collapse of a fifty-year agreement about the Zionist movement.

The origins of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations dates back to an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer subsequently appointed Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis called “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. Yet the unity became firmly established subsequent to the six-day war that year. Previously, American Jewry housed a fragile but stable cohabitation across various segments holding a range of views regarding the requirement of a Jewish state – Zionists, neutral parties and opponents.

Background Information

This parallel existence persisted during the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, among the opposing religious group and comparable entities. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader at JTS, the Zionist movement was more spiritual than political, and he prohibited the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations during that period. Nor were Zionist ideology the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities prior to that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives coexisted.

Yet after Israel overcame adjacent nations in that war that year, occupying territories comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with the country underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, along with enduring anxieties of a “second Holocaust”, produced an increasing conviction regarding Israel's critical importance for Jewish communities, and generated admiration regarding its endurance. Rhetoric regarding the extraordinary nature of the victory and the freeing of areas provided Zionism a spiritual, even messianic, significance. In those heady years, considerable existing hesitation about Zionism disappeared. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor the commentator declared: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The unified position excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the Messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and the majority of unaffiliated individuals. The most popular form of this agreement, identified as liberal Zionism, was established on the conviction about the nation as a democratic and free – though Jewish-centered – state. Numerous US Jews saw the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egyptian lands following the war as provisional, believing that a resolution would soon emerge that would maintain Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and neighbor recognition of the state.

Several cohorts of American Jews were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology an essential component of their religious identity. The nation became a key component in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners were displayed in most synagogues. Youth programs were permeated with Israeli songs and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israeli guests instructing American teenagers Israeli culture. Visits to Israel increased and reached new heights through Birthright programs during that year, offering complimentary travel to Israel became available to young American Jews. Israel permeated nearly every aspect of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, in these decades post-1967, American Jewry developed expertise regarding denominational coexistence. Open-mindedness and discussion across various Jewish groups expanded.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – that represented diversity reached its limit. Individuals might align with a conservative supporter or a liberal advocate, however endorsement of the nation as a majority-Jewish country remained unquestioned, and questioning that position categorized you outside mainstream views – an “Un-Jew”, as a Jewish periodical termed it in an essay that year.

But now, under the weight of the destruction in Gaza, starvation, child casualties and anger regarding the refusal of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their responsibility, that consensus has broken down. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer