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It has been the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, an event that shook global Jewish populations like no other occurrence following the creation of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people the event proved shocking. For the Israeli government, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist movement rested on the presumption which held that the Jewish state could stop things like this repeating.

Military action was inevitable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the killing and maiming of numerous ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice complicated the perspective of many American Jews understood the attack that precipitated the response, and it now complicates their remembrance of that date. How can someone grieve and remember an atrocity against your people in the midst of a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population attributed to their identity?

The Challenge of Mourning

The challenge in grieving lies in the fact that no agreement exists regarding the implications of these developments. In fact, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the collapse of a decades-long agreement on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity among American Jewry dates back to an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney who would later become high court jurist Louis Brandeis named “The Jewish Problem; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the Six-Day War in 1967. Earlier, US Jewish communities housed a delicate yet functioning cohabitation between groups which maintained different opinions concerning the necessity for Israel – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

That coexistence persisted throughout the 1950s and 60s, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, through the non-aligned US Jewish group, among the opposing religious group and other organizations. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Zionist movement was more spiritual instead of governmental, and he prohibited the singing of Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, during seminary ceremonies during that period. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the main element of Modern Orthodoxy before that war. Different Jewish identity models coexisted.

But after Israel overcame adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict in 1967, seizing land comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish connection with Israel underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, coupled with longstanding fears about another genocide, resulted in a developing perspective regarding Israel's critical importance to the Jewish people, and a source of pride in its resilience. Discourse regarding the “miraculous” nature of the outcome and the reclaiming of territory gave Zionism a religious, almost redemptive, importance. In those heady years, a significant portion of existing hesitation regarding Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Writer Norman Podhoretz declared: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Unity and Its Limits

The unified position excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who typically thought Israel should only emerge via conventional understanding of redemption – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The common interpretation of the consensus, what became known as progressive Zionism, was based on a belief about the nation as a progressive and democratic – though Jewish-centered – nation. Numerous US Jews saw the occupation of local, Syria's and Egyptian lands post-1967 as provisional, believing that a resolution was forthcoming that would ensure a Jewish majority within Israel's original borders and regional acceptance of the state.

Multiple generations of US Jews were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology an essential component of their Jewish identity. Israel became a key component in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. National symbols were displayed in religious institutions. Youth programs were permeated with Israeli songs and education of modern Hebrew, with Israeli guests educating American youth Israeli culture. Travel to Israel grew and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs by 1999, providing no-cost visits to the nation became available to US Jewish youth. Israel permeated virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, in these decades after 1967, US Jewish communities became adept at religious pluralism. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups expanded.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that represented tolerance found its boundary. One could identify as a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state was assumed, and criticizing that perspective positioned you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as a Jewish periodical described it in writing that year.

However currently, amid of the devastation within Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and outrage over the denial of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their responsibility, that consensus has disintegrated. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer