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Two years have passed since the horrific attack of 7 October 2023, an event that profoundly impacted global Jewish populations unlike anything else following the founding of the Jewish state.

For Jews it was profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, it was a profound disgrace. The whole Zionist movement was founded on the assumption which held that the Jewish state would prevent things like this occurring in the future.

Some form of retaliation was inevitable. However, the particular response Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of Gaza, the casualties of many thousands ordinary people – was a choice. This selected path created complexity in the perspective of many US Jewish community members understood the October 7th events that triggered it, and currently challenges the community's commemoration of the day. In what way can people honor and reflect on a horrific event targeting their community in the midst of devastation done to another people attributed to their identity?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The difficulty of mourning stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus as to the significance of these events. In fact, for the American Jewish community, the last two years have seen the disintegration of a decades-long unity regarding Zionism.

The origins of a Zionist consensus within US Jewish communities dates back to an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney subsequently appointed high court jurist Louis Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. Yet the unity really takes hold following the six-day war that year. Earlier, American Jewry housed a fragile but stable parallel existence between groups that had diverse perspectives regarding the necessity for a Jewish nation – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence endured through the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, within the neutral Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist religious group and other organizations. For Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was more spiritual than political, and he prohibited performance of Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, at religious school events in those years. Furthermore, support for Israel the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy until after the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models remained present.

Yet after Israel overcame its neighbors in the six-day war in 1967, seizing land comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish perspective on the nation evolved considerably. The triumphant outcome, coupled with enduring anxieties about another genocide, resulted in an increasing conviction regarding Israel's critical importance to the Jewish people, and created pride in its resilience. Language about the extraordinary aspect of the victory and the “liberation” of territory provided the Zionist project a religious, potentially salvific, significance. In that triumphant era, much of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel vanished. During the seventies, Commentary magazine editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The pro-Israel agreement left out the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a nation should only be established through traditional interpretation of redemption – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The common interpretation of the unified position, identified as liberal Zionism, was founded on a belief about the nation as a progressive and liberal – while majority-Jewish – state. Numerous US Jews saw the administration of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands following the war as temporary, believing that an agreement was imminent that would maintain Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of the nation.

Several cohorts of American Jews were thus brought up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The state transformed into an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. National symbols decorated religious institutions. Seasonal activities were permeated with Hebrew music and education of contemporary Hebrew, with Israeli guests and teaching US young people Israeli customs. Trips to the nation expanded and peaked with Birthright Israel in 1999, offering complimentary travel to the country was offered to Jewish young adults. Israel permeated virtually all areas of US Jewish life.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, throughout these years after 1967, Jewish Americans became adept in religious diversity. Open-mindedness and communication across various Jewish groups grew.

However regarding support for Israel – there existed diversity found its boundary. One could identify as a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and challenging that narrative placed you outside the consensus – outside the community, as Tablet magazine described it in a piece that year.

Yet presently, during of the destruction of Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and frustration over the denial within Jewish communities who decline to acknowledge their responsibility, that agreement has broken down. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer