🔗 Share this article

It has been the mass murder of 7 October 2023, which profoundly impacted global Jewish populations unlike anything else since the establishment of Israel as a nation.

For Jews it was profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, it was deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist endeavor had been established on the presumption that Israel would ensure against such atrocities occurring in the future.

A response seemed necessary. But the response undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the killing and maiming of numerous ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice made more difficult how many American Jews understood the attack that set it in motion, and currently challenges their commemoration of the day. How can someone grieve and remember an atrocity affecting their nation while simultaneously an atrocity done to other individuals in your name?

The Difficulty of Mourning

The difficulty in grieving stems from the reality that no agreement exists about what any of this means. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have experienced the collapse of a decades-long consensus regarding Zionism.

The early development of Zionist agreement across American Jewish populations dates back to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed Supreme Court judge Justice Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold after the Six-Day War that year. Before then, Jewish Americans maintained a delicate yet functioning parallel existence across various segments holding diverse perspectives regarding the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence endured through the 1950s and 60s, through surviving aspects of Jewish socialism, within the neutral US Jewish group, among the opposing Jewish organization and comparable entities. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was primarily theological instead of governmental, and he prohibited performance of Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Furthermore, Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism before the six-day war. Alternative Jewish perspectives coexisted.

However following Israel defeated neighboring countries during the 1967 conflict in 1967, seizing land comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the country underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, along with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, led to a growing belief in the country’s essential significance within Jewish identity, and a source of pride for its strength. Rhetoric regarding the extraordinary quality of the outcome and the “liberation” of land assigned the Zionist project a religious, potentially salvific, importance. In that triumphant era, much of previous uncertainty regarding Zionism vanished. During the seventies, Writer the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The Zionist consensus excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who typically thought a nation should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the messiah – but united Reform, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all unaffiliated individuals. The common interpretation of this agreement, what became known as progressive Zionism, was established on the idea about the nation as a progressive and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – nation. Countless Jewish Americans considered the administration of Arab, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as not permanent, assuming that a resolution was imminent that would ensure Jewish demographic dominance in pre-1967 Israel and regional acceptance of the state.

Several cohorts of American Jews were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became an important element in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day turned into a celebration. National symbols were displayed in religious institutions. Youth programs were permeated with Israeli songs and the study of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting educating American teenagers Israeli customs. Trips to the nation grew and achieved record numbers via educational trips during that year, offering complimentary travel to Israel became available to young American Jews. The state affected almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Evolving Situation

Interestingly, throughout these years after 1967, Jewish Americans became adept at religious pluralism. Acceptance and communication among different Jewish movements expanded.

Except when it came to support for Israel – that represented tolerance ended. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and criticizing that narrative categorized you outside the consensus – outside the community, as one publication described it in writing in 2021.

Yet presently, under the weight of the devastation in Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their complicity, that consensus has collapsed. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer