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Marking two years after the horrific attack of the events of October 7th, which shook global Jewish populations more than any event since the establishment of Israel as a nation.

Within Jewish communities the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project rested on the presumption that the nation would prevent things like this from ever happening again.

Some form of retaliation was inevitable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of many thousands of civilians – was a choice. And this choice created complexity in the perspective of many Jewish Americans processed the October 7th events that triggered it, and presently makes difficult their observance of that date. How can someone mourn and commemorate a horrific event targeting their community while simultaneously devastation experienced by another people connected to their community?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The difficulty of mourning stems from the fact that there is no consensus regarding what any of this means. Actually, among Jewish Americans, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the breakdown of a fifty-year consensus regarding Zionism.

The beginnings of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations dates back to an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney subsequently appointed Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Problem; How to Solve it”. But the consensus really takes hold subsequent to the 1967 conflict in 1967. Before then, Jewish Americans housed a delicate yet functioning parallel existence between groups that had a range of views about the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence persisted throughout the mid-twentieth century, through surviving aspects of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral American Jewish Committee, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and comparable entities. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, Zionism had greater religious significance instead of governmental, and he did not permit singing Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in those years. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

Yet after Israel defeated its neighbors in that war that year, occupying territories including Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on Israel underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, along with longstanding fears regarding repeated persecution, led to a growing belief about the nation's essential significance to the Jewish people, and created pride in its resilience. Language regarding the “miraculous” aspect of the victory and the freeing of land provided the Zionist project a spiritual, almost redemptive, importance. In that triumphant era, considerable existing hesitation about Zionism vanished. In that decade, Writer Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The unified position excluded the ultra-Orthodox – who largely believed a Jewish state should only be established through traditional interpretation of redemption – yet included Reform, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, identified as left-leaning Zionism, was based on the conviction in Israel as a democratic and democratic – while majority-Jewish – state. Many American Jews considered the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as temporary, believing that an agreement was forthcoming that would maintain Jewish population majority in Israel proper and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Several cohorts of American Jews grew up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The state transformed into an important element of Jewish education. Israel’s Independence Day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners adorned most synagogues. Youth programs became infused with Israeli songs and the study of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American youth Israeli culture. Travel to Israel expanded and reached new heights via educational trips by 1999, when a free trip to Israel was provided to young American Jews. Israel permeated almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, during this period post-1967, Jewish Americans grew skilled at religious pluralism. Acceptance and communication between Jewish denominations expanded.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – there existed diversity found its boundary. One could identify as a conservative supporter or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and challenging that position categorized you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as Tablet magazine described it in an essay recently.

But now, under the weight of the destruction in Gaza, food shortages, young victims and frustration over the denial of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that unity has collapsed. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer