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It has been that deadly assault of 7 October 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else since the establishment of Israel as a nation.

Within Jewish communities it was shocking. For Israel as a nation, it was a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist movement rested on the belief that the nation would ensure against such atrocities repeating.

Military action seemed necessary. But the response that Israel implemented – the comprehensive devastation of Gaza, the casualties of numerous ordinary people – was a choice. This selected path complicated the perspective of many American Jews grappled with the October 7th events that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's commemoration of that date. How does one mourn and commemorate an atrocity targeting their community while simultaneously devastation experienced by other individuals connected to their community?

The Difficulty of Remembrance

The complexity in grieving stems from the reality that no agreement exists as to the significance of these events. In fact, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have witnessed the disintegration of a decades-long consensus about the Zionist movement.

The beginnings of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations can be traced to an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney and then future high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity truly solidified after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Earlier, US Jewish communities contained a fragile but stable parallel existence between groups holding a range of views concerning the necessity for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

Such cohabitation continued through the post-war decades, within remaining elements of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, among the opposing American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was primarily theological rather than political, and he forbade performance of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, during seminary ceremonies during that period. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.

But after Israel routed its neighbors during the 1967 conflict that year, seizing land including Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the nation underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, coupled with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, led to an increasing conviction in the country’s critical importance to the Jewish people, and generated admiration regarding its endurance. Language concerning the “miraculous” quality of the success and the reclaiming of areas assigned the movement a theological, even messianic, importance. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation regarding Zionism disappeared. During the seventies, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz declared: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The unified position left out strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained a nation should only emerge via conventional understanding of the Messiah – yet included Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, later termed liberal Zionism, was founded on the idea in Israel as a progressive and democratic – while majority-Jewish – nation. Numerous US Jews viewed the control of Arab, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as provisional, assuming that an agreement was imminent that would ensure Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Multiple generations of American Jews grew up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became a key component in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners were displayed in most synagogues. Summer camps became infused with Hebrew music and learning of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel and teaching American teenagers Israeli culture. Travel to Israel grew and peaked through Birthright programs by 1999, offering complimentary travel to the country became available to young American Jews. The state affected almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Evolving Situation

Ironically, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry became adept at religious pluralism. Open-mindedness and discussion between Jewish denominations increased.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – that’s where diversity ended. One could identify as a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a majority-Jewish country was a given, and questioning that narrative positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – outside the community, as Tablet magazine termed it in writing recently.

However currently, under the weight of the ruin of Gaza, starvation, young victims and anger over the denial of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that consensus has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer