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It has been that mass murder of the events of October 7th, an event that profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide like no other occurrence following the founding of Israel as a nation.

Within Jewish communities the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, the situation represented a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist endeavor had been established on the belief which held that the nation would ensure against things like this occurring in the future.

A response was inevitable. However, the particular response that Israel implemented – the obliteration of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of many thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice complicated the way numerous US Jewish community members grappled with the October 7th events that set it in motion, and currently challenges their commemoration of that date. How does one honor and reflect on a tragedy against your people in the midst of an atrocity experienced by another people in your name?

The Difficulty of Grieving

The difficulty in grieving exists because of the circumstance where little unity prevails as to the implications of these developments. In fact, for the American Jewish community, this two-year period have experienced the collapse of a decades-long consensus on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer and then future high court jurist Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Problem; Addressing the Challenge”. But the consensus became firmly established after the Six-Day War during 1967. Earlier, American Jewry housed a delicate yet functioning cohabitation among different factions holding diverse perspectives concerning the necessity for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and opponents.

Background Information

Such cohabitation persisted during the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, through the non-aligned American Jewish Committee, among the opposing American Council for Judaism and other organizations. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, pro-Israel ideology had greater religious significance instead of governmental, and he did not permit the singing of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

However following Israel overcame adjacent nations in the six-day war during that period, occupying territories comprising the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish connection with Israel evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, combined with enduring anxieties of a “second Holocaust”, led to a growing belief about the nation's critical importance to the Jewish people, and a source of pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric about the remarkable aspect of the victory and the reclaiming of land provided the Zionist project a spiritual, even messianic, significance. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation toward Israel disappeared. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz stated: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The Zionist consensus excluded Haredi Jews – who typically thought a nation should only be ushered in by a traditional rendering of the messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The common interpretation of the consensus, what became known as liberal Zionism, was established on a belief in Israel as a progressive and liberal – though Jewish-centered – country. Numerous US Jews saw the administration of local, Syria's and Egyptian lands post-1967 as not permanent, believing that an agreement would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish demographic dominance in Israel proper and neighbor recognition of Israel.

Several cohorts of Jewish Americans were thus brought up with pro-Israel ideology a core part of their Jewish identity. The nation became an important element in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners adorned many temples. Summer camps were permeated with Israeli songs and learning of modern Hebrew, with Israeli guests and teaching American teenagers Israeli customs. Travel to Israel increased and achieved record numbers with Birthright Israel in 1999, offering complimentary travel to Israel became available to young American Jews. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, in these decades after 1967, American Jewry grew skilled regarding denominational coexistence. Acceptance and communication across various Jewish groups expanded.

However regarding Zionism and Israel – that represented diversity reached its limit. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a majority-Jewish country was assumed, and challenging that position placed you outside the consensus – outside the community, as one publication termed it in an essay recently.

Yet presently, amid of the devastation in Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their complicity, that consensus has disintegrated. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer