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Two years have passed since the mass murder of the events of October 7th, which shook global Jewish populations like no other occurrence since the founding of the state of Israel.

Among Jewish people it was profoundly disturbing. For the Israeli government, it was deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project had been established on the presumption that Israel would ensure against similar tragedies occurring in the future.

Military action appeared unavoidable. Yet the chosen course undertaken by Israel – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of many thousands non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. This particular approach created complexity in the way numerous US Jewish community members grappled with the October 7th events that precipitated the response, and it now complicates the community's remembrance of that date. How can someone mourn and commemorate an atrocity affecting their nation during an atrocity done to another people connected to their community?

The Difficulty of Remembrance

The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the reality that there is no consensus about what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have witnessed the disintegration of a decades-long consensus on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of Zionist agreement across American Jewish populations can be traced to an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer who would later become supreme court justice Louis D. Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement really takes hold after the six-day war in 1967. Earlier, American Jewry housed a fragile but stable cohabitation between groups holding diverse perspectives concerning the need of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence continued during the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist Jewish organization and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, the Zionist movement was more spiritual instead of governmental, and he forbade the singing of Hatikvah, Hatikvah, during seminary ceremonies during that period. Nor were support for Israel the main element of Modern Orthodoxy until after the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives remained present.

But after Israel defeated neighboring countries during the 1967 conflict that year, seizing land including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish relationship to the country evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, combined with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, led to a developing perspective in the country’s critical importance for Jewish communities, and a source of pride regarding its endurance. Language about the extraordinary aspect of the victory and the freeing of territory assigned the movement a religious, almost redemptive, significance. In those heady years, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence about Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Consensus and Its Boundaries

The Zionist consensus did not include the ultra-Orthodox – who largely believed a nation should only be ushered in via conventional understanding of the messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The common interpretation of this agreement, later termed liberal Zionism, was founded on the idea about the nation as a progressive and democratic – though Jewish-centered – country. Countless Jewish Americans saw the occupation of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands following the war as not permanent, thinking that an agreement was imminent that would ensure Jewish demographic dominance in Israel proper and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Several cohorts of American Jews were thus brought up with Zionism a core part of their religious identity. The state transformed into a central part within religious instruction. Israeli national day became a Jewish holiday. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Summer camps were permeated with Hebrew music and education of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching US young people Israeli culture. Travel to Israel increased and reached new heights through Birthright programs in 1999, when a free trip to the nation became available to US Jewish youth. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Ironically, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry grew skilled in religious diversity. Open-mindedness and discussion among different Jewish movements expanded.

Except when it came to the Israeli situation – there existed diversity ended. You could be a right-leaning advocate or a liberal advocate, but support for Israel as a Jewish state was a given, and questioning that position positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – an “Un-Jew”, as Tablet magazine described it in writing in 2021.

But now, during of the destruction of Gaza, famine, young victims and anger regarding the refusal by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their responsibility, that unity has broken down. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer