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Marking two years after that deadly assault of the events of October 7th, which shook global Jewish populations like no other occurrence following the founding of Israel as a nation.

For Jews the event proved deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist endeavor was founded on the presumption that the nation would prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again.

A response seemed necessary. But the response Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of numerous ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice complicated the perspective of many US Jewish community members understood the attack that triggered it, and presently makes difficult the community's commemoration of the day. In what way can people honor and reflect on a horrific event targeting their community in the midst of an atrocity being inflicted upon other individuals connected to their community?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The challenge in grieving stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus about the implications of these developments. Actually, for the American Jewish community, the last two years have experienced the collapse of a fifty-year unity regarding Zionism.

The early development of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer and then future Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement really takes hold after the Six-Day War during 1967. Previously, US Jewish communities housed a delicate yet functioning parallel existence between groups holding a range of views about the necessity of a Jewish state – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence persisted through the 1950s and 60s, through surviving aspects of leftist Jewish organizations, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, within the critical Jewish organization and similar institutions. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor at JTS, pro-Israel ideology was more spiritual than political, and he forbade the singing of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Nor were Zionist ideology the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities before the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives existed alongside.

However following Israel overcame its neighbors during the 1967 conflict that year, seizing land including the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, US Jewish connection with Israel changed dramatically. The military success, along with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, produced a growing belief about the nation's critical importance to the Jewish people, and created pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric concerning the remarkable aspect of the outcome and the “liberation” of territory assigned the Zionist project a theological, even messianic, importance. In that triumphant era, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel vanished. In the early 1970s, Publication editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Unity and Its Limits

The Zionist consensus did not include Haredi Jews – who typically thought Israel should only be established through traditional interpretation of redemption – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The common interpretation of the unified position, what became known as left-leaning Zionism, was based on a belief about the nation as a liberal and democratic – while majority-Jewish – country. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Egypt's territories post-1967 as temporary, thinking that an agreement was forthcoming that would maintain a Jewish majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of Israel.

Several cohorts of Jewish Americans were raised with pro-Israel ideology an essential component of their religious identity. The nation became a key component of Jewish education. Israeli national day turned into a celebration. Israeli flags adorned religious institutions. Seasonal activities were permeated with Israeli songs and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting instructing US young people national traditions. Travel to Israel grew and peaked with Birthright Israel by 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel was provided to US Jewish youth. Israel permeated nearly every aspect of the American Jewish experience.

Shifting Landscape

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, US Jewish communities became adept in religious diversity. Open-mindedness and communication among different Jewish movements expanded.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – that represented tolerance found its boundary. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland was assumed, and criticizing that narrative positioned you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as a Jewish periodical termed it in a piece that year.

But now, amid of the destruction of Gaza, famine, young victims and anger over the denial within Jewish communities who refuse to recognize their involvement, that unity has disintegrated. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer