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Two years have passed since the mass murder of the events of October 7th, which profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide like no other occurrence since the founding of the Jewish state.

Within Jewish communities it was profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, it was deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist project rested on the presumption which held that the nation would ensure against such atrocities repeating.

Military action was inevitable. But the response that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of numerous ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. And this choice made more difficult the way numerous American Jews processed the initial assault that precipitated the response, and presently makes difficult the community's commemoration of that date. In what way can people mourn and commemorate a horrific event affecting their nation during a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?

The Difficulty of Grieving

The challenge surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus about the implications of these developments. Indeed, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have seen the disintegration of a half-century-old unity regarding Zionism.

The early development of pro-Israel unity across American Jewish populations extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar and then future high court jurist Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement truly solidified subsequent to the Six-Day War in 1967. Earlier, Jewish Americans maintained a vulnerable but enduring cohabitation among different factions holding different opinions regarding the need for Israel – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

This parallel existence endured through the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, in the anti-Zionist Jewish organization and other organizations. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Zionist movement was primarily theological than political, and he prohibited the singing of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at religious school events during that period. Additionally, Zionist ideology the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism before that war. Different Jewish identity models remained present.

Yet after Israel routed its neighbors during the 1967 conflict that year, taking control of areas such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, US Jewish connection with the nation underwent significant transformation. The military success, along with enduring anxieties of a “second Holocaust”, produced a growing belief about the nation's vital role for Jewish communities, and a source of pride in its resilience. Rhetoric about the extraordinary quality of the outcome and the freeing of territory provided Zionism a spiritual, even messianic, significance. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation toward Israel dissipated. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz declared: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The unified position did not include the ultra-Orthodox – who largely believed a nation should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the Messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of non-affiliated Jews. The most popular form of this agreement, later termed progressive Zionism, was established on the idea in Israel as a liberal and free – albeit ethnocentric – state. Countless Jewish Americans considered the occupation of Arab, Syrian and Egypt's territories post-1967 as temporary, assuming that a resolution would soon emerge that would ensure Jewish demographic dominance in pre-1967 Israel and neighbor recognition of the nation.

Several cohorts of US Jews were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their Jewish identity. The nation became a key component of Jewish education. Israeli national day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners were displayed in many temples. Summer camps integrated with Hebrew music and education of modern Hebrew, with Israeli guests instructing American teenagers Israeli customs. Trips to the nation increased and reached new heights via educational trips in 1999, when a free trip to the country was offered to Jewish young adults. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of US Jewish life.

Evolving Situation

Interestingly, in these decades after 1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise in religious diversity. Acceptance and dialogue among different Jewish movements grew.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – that’s where diversity found its boundary. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a progressive supporter, but support for Israel as a Jewish state was a given, and criticizing that perspective categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as one publication labeled it in a piece that year.

However currently, under the weight of the devastation within Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their complicity, that consensus has disintegrated. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer