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It has been the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the founding of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people it was shocking. For the state of Israel, it was a significant embarrassment. The whole Zionist project was founded on the presumption that Israel would ensure against things like this repeating.

Military action appeared unavoidable. But the response undertaken by Israel – the comprehensive devastation of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of many thousands ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This selected path created complexity in the way numerous American Jews processed the attack that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's observance of the anniversary. How does one mourn and commemorate a horrific event affecting their nation during devastation experienced by another people in your name?

The Complexity of Mourning

The complexity of mourning stems from the circumstance where no agreement exists regarding the significance of these events. Indeed, among Jewish Americans, the last two years have witnessed the disintegration of a half-century-old agreement regarding Zionism.

The beginnings of pro-Israel unity among American Jewry extends as far back as writings from 1915 by the lawyer and then future high court jurist Louis D. Brandeis named “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement became firmly established following the Six-Day War that year. Previously, American Jewry housed a vulnerable but enduring cohabitation among different factions holding diverse perspectives about the requirement for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

Such cohabitation endured during the post-war decades, within remaining elements of leftist Jewish organizations, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and other organizations. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the head of the theological institution, Zionism had greater religious significance than political, and he prohibited performance of Hatikvah, the national song, at religious school events in the early 1960s. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the central focus within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to that war. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.

However following Israel defeated its neighbors during the 1967 conflict during that period, occupying territories comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on the nation underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, coupled with enduring anxieties regarding repeated persecution, produced a developing perspective in the country’s essential significance to the Jewish people, and a source of pride regarding its endurance. Discourse about the extraordinary nature of the victory and the “liberation” of areas gave the movement a spiritual, almost redemptive, importance. During that enthusiastic period, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel dissipated. In that decade, Commentary magazine editor the commentator declared: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Agreement and Its Limits

The unified position excluded strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The most popular form of the consensus, identified as left-leaning Zionism, was based on a belief regarding Israel as a democratic and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – nation. Countless Jewish Americans saw the occupation of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as temporary, thinking that an agreement was imminent that would maintain Jewish demographic dominance in pre-1967 Israel and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Several cohorts of Jewish Americans grew up with pro-Israel ideology an essential component of their religious identity. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Youth programs became infused with Israeli songs and learning of the language, with Israelis visiting and teaching American youth national traditions. Travel to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers with Birthright Israel in 1999, offering complimentary travel to Israel was offered to US Jewish youth. The state affected nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry became adept regarding denominational coexistence. Tolerance and communication across various Jewish groups grew.

Except when it came to support for Israel – that represented diversity found its boundary. Individuals might align with a conservative supporter or a progressive supporter, but support for Israel as a Jewish state was assumed, and challenging that perspective positioned you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as one publication labeled it in a piece that year.

But now, amid of the destruction within Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and anger regarding the refusal by numerous Jewish individuals who decline to acknowledge their complicity, that consensus has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer