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Two years have passed since the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, which shook Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else following the establishment of Israel as a nation.

Among Jewish people the event proved profoundly disturbing. For the state of Israel, it was deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist project rested on the assumption which held that Israel would prevent such atrocities occurring in the future.

A response appeared unavoidable. But the response that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of civilians – constituted a specific policy. And this choice complicated how many Jewish Americans understood the attack that triggered it, and currently challenges their remembrance of the anniversary. How does one honor and reflect on an atrocity targeting their community during devastation done to a different population connected to their community?

The Difficulty of Remembrance

The challenge of mourning stems from the fact that there is no consensus regarding what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the last two years have seen the breakdown of a decades-long agreement on Zionism itself.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity across American Jewish populations can be traced to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar and then future high court jurist Louis Brandeis named “Jewish Issues; Finding Solutions”. Yet the unity truly solidified after the six-day war that year. Previously, US Jewish communities maintained a fragile but stable coexistence among different factions holding different opinions concerning the need for Israel – Zionists, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

Such cohabitation persisted during the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist Jewish organization and similar institutions. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head at JTS, Zionism was primarily theological instead of governmental, and he did not permit performance of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at religious school events during that period. Furthermore, support for Israel the central focus of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives coexisted.

But after Israel routed neighboring countries during the 1967 conflict during that period, taking control of areas including the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish connection with Israel underwent significant transformation. Israel’s victory, coupled with longstanding fears regarding repeated persecution, resulted in a developing perspective about the nation's critical importance to the Jewish people, and created pride for its strength. Rhetoric regarding the extraordinary quality of the outcome and the reclaiming of territory assigned the Zionist project a spiritual, potentially salvific, importance. In that triumphant era, a significant portion of previous uncertainty regarding Zionism dissipated. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The pro-Israel agreement left out strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the messiah – but united Reform, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The most popular form of this agreement, later termed left-leaning Zionism, was based on the conviction about the nation as a progressive and democratic – while majority-Jewish – country. Many American Jews viewed the occupation of local, Syria's and Egyptian lands post-1967 as not permanent, assuming that a solution would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish demographic dominance within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Several cohorts of American Jews were thus brought up with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The nation became an important element within religious instruction. Israel’s Independence Day evolved into a religious observance. National symbols were displayed in many temples. Youth programs became infused with Hebrew music and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israeli guests and teaching American teenagers Israeli culture. Travel to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs in 1999, providing no-cost visits to the nation was offered to US Jewish youth. Israel permeated nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, in these decades post-1967, Jewish Americans became adept regarding denominational coexistence. Acceptance and communication across various Jewish groups increased.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – that represented tolerance ended. You could be a rightwing Zionist or a liberal advocate, but support for Israel as a majority-Jewish country was a given, and questioning that position placed you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as one publication described it in an essay that year.

Yet presently, during of the devastation within Gaza, food shortages, young victims and anger about the rejection within Jewish communities who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that agreement has collapsed. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer