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It has been that horrific attack of 7 October 2023, which shook world Jewry unlike anything else following the founding of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people it was profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist endeavor was founded on the presumption which held that the nation would prevent things like this occurring in the future.

A response was inevitable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the casualties of numerous ordinary people – represented a decision. This particular approach made more difficult the way numerous US Jewish community members grappled with the initial assault that set it in motion, and currently challenges the community's commemoration of the day. How can someone grieve and remember a horrific event against your people in the midst of an atrocity done to other individuals attributed to their identity?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The challenge surrounding remembrance exists because of the fact that no agreement exists regarding the implications of these developments. Actually, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have experienced the disintegration of a decades-long unity regarding Zionism.

The early development of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer and then future high court jurist Justice Brandeis called “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. But the consensus really takes hold after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Before then, American Jewry housed a delicate yet functioning cohabitation among different factions that had a range of views about the requirement for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

That coexistence endured throughout the 1950s and 60s, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, within the neutral Jewish communal organization, among the opposing Jewish organization and comparable entities. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the chancellor of the theological institution, pro-Israel ideology was primarily theological rather than political, and he prohibited singing Hatikvah, Hatikvah, during seminary ceremonies in those years. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the central focus within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives remained present.

Yet after Israel defeated adjacent nations in that war during that period, seizing land such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to Israel underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, along with longstanding fears regarding repeated persecution, led to an increasing conviction in the country’s essential significance for Jewish communities, and created pride for its strength. Rhetoric concerning the “miraculous” quality of the success and the reclaiming of areas gave Zionism a spiritual, even messianic, importance. In that triumphant era, considerable existing hesitation toward Israel vanished. In that decade, Publication editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The unified position left out strictly Orthodox communities – who typically thought a Jewish state should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the messiah – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The most popular form of the consensus, later termed liberal Zionism, was based on a belief in Israel as a liberal and democratic – while majority-Jewish – state. Countless Jewish Americans considered the administration of Palestinian, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as temporary, assuming that a resolution was forthcoming that would ensure Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Two generations of Jewish Americans were raised with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. Israel became an important element within religious instruction. Israel’s Independence Day became a Jewish holiday. National symbols decorated religious institutions. Seasonal activities integrated with national melodies and the study of contemporary Hebrew, with visitors from Israel and teaching American teenagers Israeli culture. Visits to Israel grew and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, offering complimentary travel to Israel became available to young American Jews. The nation influenced almost the entirety of Jewish American identity.

Evolving Situation

Ironically, in these decades after 1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise at religious pluralism. Acceptance and discussion across various Jewish groups expanded.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – there existed tolerance ended. You could be a right-leaning advocate or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and questioning that narrative positioned you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as a Jewish periodical termed it in an essay in 2021.

But now, during of the devastation in Gaza, food shortages, young victims and frustration about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who decline to acknowledge their responsibility, that unity has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer