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Two years have passed since the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, an event that shook Jewish communities worldwide more than any event following the founding of the state of Israel.

Within Jewish communities the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, it was deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project had been established on the belief which held that Israel could stop such atrocities repeating.

Military action appeared unavoidable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the killing and maiming of many thousands of civilians – constituted a specific policy. And this choice complicated the perspective of many American Jews understood the October 7th events that precipitated the response, and currently challenges their observance of the day. How does one honor and reflect on a tragedy affecting their nation during an atrocity experienced by a different population connected to their community?

The Complexity of Remembrance

The challenge surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus as to the implications of these developments. In fact, among Jewish Americans, this two-year period have seen the breakdown of a decades-long consensus on Zionism itself.

The early development of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities extends as far back as writings from 1915 authored by an attorney subsequently appointed supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis called “The Jewish Question; Finding Solutions”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the six-day war during 1967. Before then, US Jewish communities contained a fragile but stable coexistence between groups which maintained a range of views regarding the necessity of a Jewish state – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

Such cohabitation persisted during the post-war decades, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, within the neutral American Jewish Committee, among the opposing religious group and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the chancellor at JTS, the Zionist movement was more spiritual rather than political, and he did not permit singing Israel's anthem, the Israeli national anthem, during seminary ceremonies during that period. Furthermore, Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece of Modern Orthodoxy prior to that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives coexisted.

But after Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war in 1967, taking control of areas such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, the Golan and East Jerusalem, US Jewish relationship to Israel changed dramatically. Israel’s victory, coupled with persistent concerns of a “second Holocaust”, produced an increasing conviction in the country’s essential significance within Jewish identity, and a source of pride in its resilience. Discourse about the extraordinary nature of the success and the freeing of land assigned Zionism a religious, almost redemptive, meaning. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation toward Israel dissipated. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz stated: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The pro-Israel agreement did not include Haredi Jews – who typically thought Israel should only emerge by a traditional rendering of the messiah – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, what became known as progressive Zionism, was based on a belief in Israel as a progressive and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – state. Numerous US Jews saw the occupation of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands after 1967 as temporary, believing that an agreement would soon emerge that would ensure Jewish demographic dominance within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Two generations of Jewish Americans grew up with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became a central part of Jewish education. Israeli national day became a Jewish holiday. Israeli flags were displayed in most synagogues. Summer camps became infused with Hebrew music and education of contemporary Hebrew, with visitors from Israel and teaching American teenagers Israeli culture. Travel to Israel expanded and reached new heights via educational trips by 1999, offering complimentary travel to Israel was provided to Jewish young adults. The state affected virtually all areas of US Jewish life.

Shifting Landscape

Ironically, in these decades post-1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise in religious diversity. Tolerance and communication across various Jewish groups increased.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – there existed tolerance ended. You could be a right-leaning advocate or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a majority-Jewish country was a given, and questioning that perspective placed you outside mainstream views – a non-conformist, as Tablet magazine described it in an essay that year.

But now, under the weight of the destruction of Gaza, starvation, young victims and frustration about the rejection of many fellow Jews who decline to acknowledge their responsibility, that agreement has collapsed. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer