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Two years have passed since the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, which deeply affected world Jewry unlike anything else since the establishment of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people it was shocking. For the state of Israel, it was a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist endeavor had been established on the presumption which held that Israel would ensure against similar tragedies from ever happening again.

Military action was inevitable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the killing and maiming of numerous non-combatants – constituted a specific policy. This selected path created complexity in the perspective of many US Jewish community members grappled with the attack that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's remembrance of the day. How does one grieve and remember an atrocity targeting their community in the midst of an atrocity experienced by other individuals attributed to their identity?

The Difficulty of Grieving

The difficulty surrounding remembrance lies in the fact that little unity prevails about the implications of these developments. In fact, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the collapse of a fifty-year agreement on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities extends as far back as a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar and then future high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis called “Jewish Issues; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement really takes hold following the six-day war that year. Earlier, Jewish Americans housed a fragile but stable coexistence between groups holding different opinions about the requirement for a Jewish nation – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

That coexistence continued during the post-war decades, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, within the critical religious group and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, the Zionist movement was more spiritual rather than political, and he did not permit singing Hatikvah, the national song, during seminary ceremonies in those years. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece of Modern Orthodoxy until after the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives coexisted.

But after Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war that year, taking control of areas including Palestinian territories, Gaza, the Golan and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the nation underwent significant transformation. The military success, coupled with enduring anxieties regarding repeated persecution, led to a growing belief regarding Israel's essential significance for Jewish communities, and generated admiration in its resilience. Discourse about the “miraculous” quality of the victory and the “liberation” of territory provided the Zionist project a spiritual, even messianic, importance. During that enthusiastic period, much of existing hesitation toward Israel dissipated. In that decade, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz declared: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The unified position excluded strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a Jewish state should only emerge via conventional understanding of the Messiah – yet included Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most secular Jews. The most popular form of this agreement, identified as progressive Zionism, was founded on the conviction about the nation as a progressive and democratic – though Jewish-centered – country. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the administration of local, Syrian and Egyptian lands post-1967 as temporary, believing that a solution was imminent that would maintain a Jewish majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of the nation.

Two generations of US Jews grew up with Zionism a core part of their religious identity. The state transformed into an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. Israeli flags were displayed in most synagogues. Summer camps integrated with national melodies and education of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel educating American teenagers Israeli customs. Travel to Israel increased and reached new heights with Birthright Israel by 1999, offering complimentary travel to the country became available to Jewish young adults. Israel permeated nearly every aspect of US Jewish life.

Shifting Landscape

Ironically, during this period post-1967, American Jewry became adept in religious diversity. Acceptance and communication between Jewish denominations increased.

Except when it came to the Israeli situation – that’s where tolerance ended. You could be a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and criticizing that perspective categorized you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as a Jewish periodical labeled it in writing recently.

But now, during of the destruction in Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and outrage about the rejection within Jewish communities who avoid admitting their complicity, that agreement has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer