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Two years have passed since the deadly assault of October 7, 2023, which deeply affected world Jewry like no other occurrence following the creation of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people the event proved deeply traumatic. For the state of Israel, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project had been established on the assumption that the nation would ensure against similar tragedies repeating.

Military action was inevitable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the obliteration of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice complicated the way numerous US Jewish community members understood the attack that set it in motion, and currently challenges their remembrance of the day. How does one honor and reflect on a horrific event affecting their nation during an atrocity done to other individuals attributed to their identity?

The Difficulty of Grieving

The difficulty of mourning exists because of the reality that little unity prevails about the significance of these events. Indeed, among Jewish Americans, this two-year period have seen the breakdown of a half-century-old agreement regarding Zionism.

The origins of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities dates back to a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar and then future supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Before then, US Jewish communities housed a vulnerable but enduring parallel existence among different factions which maintained different opinions regarding the necessity for Israel – Zionists, neutral parties and opponents.

Historical Context

This parallel existence continued throughout the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of leftist Jewish organizations, through the non-aligned US Jewish group, among the opposing Jewish organization and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head of the theological institution, Zionism had greater religious significance instead of governmental, and he did not permit singing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations during that period. Nor were Zionist ideology the main element within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the 1967 conflict. Jewish identitarian alternatives remained present.

Yet after Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war that year, occupying territories comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, US Jewish relationship to Israel changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, along with enduring anxieties about another genocide, led to an increasing conviction about the nation's critical importance to the Jewish people, and generated admiration in its resilience. Rhetoric about the extraordinary nature of the outcome and the “liberation” of land gave the Zionist project a spiritual, potentially salvific, meaning. In those heady years, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel dissipated. In the early 1970s, Writer Podhoretz declared: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Unity and Its Boundaries

The pro-Israel agreement left out the ultra-Orthodox – who largely believed Israel should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the Messiah – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The most popular form of the consensus, what became known as left-leaning Zionism, was based on the conviction regarding Israel as a progressive and democratic – though Jewish-centered – country. Numerous US Jews considered the control of Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian lands post-1967 as not permanent, believing that a resolution was forthcoming that would guarantee a Jewish majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of the state.

Two generations of US Jews were raised with Zionism a fundamental aspect of their Jewish identity. The state transformed into a central part of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. National symbols decorated religious institutions. Seasonal activities became infused with Israeli songs and the study of contemporary Hebrew, with Israeli guests educating US young people Israeli customs. Trips to the nation grew and reached new heights via educational trips during that year, when a free trip to the country became available to young American Jews. The state affected almost the entirety of the American Jewish experience.

Evolving Situation

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, US Jewish communities became adept regarding denominational coexistence. Open-mindedness and dialogue among different Jewish movements increased.

Except when it came to the Israeli situation – that’s where diversity reached its limit. Individuals might align with a right-leaning advocate or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and criticizing that position categorized you outside mainstream views – a non-conformist, as one publication labeled it in an essay that year.

But now, amid of the destruction in Gaza, famine, child casualties and anger over the denial by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their complicity, that unity has collapsed. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer