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It has been the mass murder of 7 October 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the founding of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people the event proved profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist movement had been established on the presumption that Israel would prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.

A response was inevitable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of Gaza, the casualties of numerous of civilians – was a choice. This particular approach made more difficult the perspective of many American Jews grappled with the attack that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's observance of the day. How can someone mourn and commemorate a horrific event affecting their nation during a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?

The Challenge of Mourning

The complexity in grieving lies in the circumstance where there is no consensus as to the significance of these events. Actually, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the breakdown of a half-century-old unity on Zionism itself.

The early development of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations can be traced to writings from 1915 authored by an attorney subsequently appointed Supreme Court judge Justice Brandeis named “Jewish Issues; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement truly solidified following the 1967 conflict that year. Before then, US Jewish communities maintained a delicate yet functioning parallel existence among different factions holding a range of views concerning the necessity for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

Such cohabitation persisted during the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, within the critical Jewish organization and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pro-Israel ideology had greater religious significance rather than political, and he did not permit singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Furthermore, support for Israel the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities before the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives existed alongside.

However following Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war that year, taking control of areas comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and East Jerusalem, US Jewish perspective on the nation underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, along with enduring anxieties about another genocide, produced an increasing conviction regarding Israel's essential significance to the Jewish people, and a source of pride in its resilience. Discourse about the extraordinary aspect of the outcome and the freeing of territory provided Zionism a spiritual, potentially salvific, importance. In that triumphant era, considerable existing hesitation toward Israel dissipated. In the early 1970s, Writer the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The unified position did not include strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a nation should only be ushered in via conventional understanding of the Messiah – yet included Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and nearly all non-affiliated Jews. The predominant version of this agreement, identified as liberal Zionism, was established on the conviction in Israel as a liberal and liberal – though Jewish-centered – country. Many American Jews considered the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as temporary, assuming that a resolution would soon emerge that would maintain Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of the nation.

Two generations of US Jews grew up with Zionism an essential component of their religious identity. The state transformed into a key component in Jewish learning. Israeli national day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Youth programs were permeated with Hebrew music and learning of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting instructing American teenagers Israeli customs. Visits to Israel grew and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, providing no-cost visits to the nation was offered to US Jewish youth. The state affected almost the entirety of Jewish American identity.

Shifting Landscape

Interestingly, during this period post-1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise in religious diversity. Acceptance and dialogue among different Jewish movements increased.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that’s where pluralism reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and criticizing that position placed you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as one publication labeled it in a piece that year.

But now, during of the ruin of Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and outrage over the denial of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that unity has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer