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Marking two years after the horrific attack of the events of October 7th, an event that deeply affected world Jewry unlike anything else following the establishment of the Jewish state.

For Jews the event proved shocking. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist movement was founded on the belief that Israel would prevent things like this repeating.

A response appeared unavoidable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the obliteration of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of many thousands non-combatants – was a choice. And this choice complicated the perspective of many American Jews grappled with the attack that triggered it, and presently makes difficult their remembrance of the anniversary. In what way can people mourn and commemorate a horrific event affecting their nation during a catastrophe done to a different population in your name?

The Complexity of Mourning

The difficulty in grieving lies in the circumstance where no agreement exists about what any of this means. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the collapse of a fifty-year agreement about the Zionist movement.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity across American Jewish populations can be traced to an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer who would later become Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; How to Solve it”. Yet the unity really takes hold following the Six-Day War in 1967. Earlier, Jewish Americans housed a vulnerable but enduring coexistence between groups that had a range of views about the need for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and opponents.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence persisted throughout the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist religious group and comparable entities. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Zionism was primarily theological instead of governmental, and he prohibited singing Israel's anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations during that period. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities before the 1967 conflict. Alternative Jewish perspectives remained present.

However following Israel routed adjacent nations in that war that year, occupying territories such as Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish relationship to the nation changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, combined with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, resulted in a growing belief in the country’s vital role for Jewish communities, and created pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric about the “miraculous” nature of the success and the “liberation” of land gave the movement a spiritual, potentially salvific, importance. During that enthusiastic period, a significant portion of previous uncertainty toward Israel disappeared. During the seventies, Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Boundaries

The pro-Israel agreement left out Haredi Jews – who typically thought a Jewish state should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and the majority of non-affiliated Jews. The most popular form of the unified position, what became known as liberal Zionism, was based on a belief regarding Israel as a democratic and free – while majority-Jewish – country. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the administration of Arab, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as not permanent, thinking that an agreement would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish demographic dominance in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Two generations of American Jews were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The nation became an important element within religious instruction. Yom Ha'atzmaut evolved into a religious observance. Israeli flags adorned religious institutions. Summer camps integrated with national melodies and the study of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel instructing American teenagers Israeli customs. Trips to the nation increased and peaked with Birthright Israel in 1999, when a free trip to the nation became available to young American Jews. Israel permeated almost the entirety of US Jewish life.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, in these decades after 1967, US Jewish communities became adept in religious diversity. Acceptance and communication between Jewish denominations grew.

However regarding support for Israel – that represented diversity found its boundary. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish homeland was assumed, and challenging that narrative placed you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as a Jewish periodical termed it in writing in 2021.

Yet presently, amid of the ruin within Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and anger about the rejection of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their complicity, that consensus has collapsed. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer