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Two years have passed since that deadly assault of the events of October 7th, an event that deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the establishment of the state of Israel.

Within Jewish communities it was shocking. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project was founded on the assumption which held that the nation would prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again.

Some form of retaliation was inevitable. Yet the chosen course that Israel implemented – the obliteration of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of numerous non-combatants – represented a decision. And this choice complicated the perspective of many American Jews understood the October 7th events that set it in motion, and it now complicates the community's observance of that date. How does one honor and reflect on an atrocity against your people while simultaneously a catastrophe experienced by another people attributed to their identity?

The Challenge of Mourning

The challenge of mourning exists because of the fact that no agreement exists as to the significance of these events. Actually, for the American Jewish community, this two-year period have experienced the breakdown of a decades-long agreement regarding Zionism.

The origins of pro-Israel unity among American Jewry extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar subsequently appointed supreme court justice Justice Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity truly solidified following the six-day war during 1967. Before then, US Jewish communities housed a vulnerable but enduring coexistence among different factions which maintained different opinions about the requirement for Israel – Zionists, non-Zionists and opponents.

Previous Developments

This parallel existence persisted through the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the leader at JTS, Zionism was more spiritual rather than political, and he forbade the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at religious school events during that period. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the centerpiece of Modern Orthodoxy prior to the 1967 conflict. Different Jewish identity models coexisted.

But after Israel defeated neighboring countries in the six-day war that year, seizing land comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the nation changed dramatically. The military success, combined with persistent concerns regarding repeated persecution, resulted in an increasing conviction in the country’s essential significance to the Jewish people, and created pride for its strength. Language regarding the “miraculous” quality of the outcome and the “liberation” of territory provided the Zionist project a theological, even messianic, importance. In those heady years, a significant portion of existing hesitation toward Israel dissipated. In that decade, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The unified position left out strictly Orthodox communities – who typically thought a nation should only be established through traditional interpretation of redemption – but united Reform, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The most popular form of the unified position, identified as progressive Zionism, was founded on a belief in Israel as a progressive and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – country. Many American Jews viewed the occupation of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as not permanent, believing that a resolution was imminent that would maintain Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and regional acceptance of the nation.

Several cohorts of US Jews were thus brought up with Zionism an essential component of their religious identity. Israel became an important element of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. National symbols adorned most synagogues. Youth programs integrated with Hebrew music and learning of the language, with Israeli guests instructing American youth Israeli culture. Trips to the nation expanded and peaked with Birthright Israel in 1999, offering complimentary travel to the nation became available to young American Jews. Israel permeated virtually all areas of US Jewish life.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, American Jewry developed expertise at religious pluralism. Acceptance and discussion across various Jewish groups expanded.

Yet concerning the Israeli situation – there existed pluralism reached its limit. One could identify as a right-leaning advocate or a progressive supporter, however endorsement of the nation as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and questioning that position positioned you outside mainstream views – a non-conformist, as one publication labeled it in writing that year.

However currently, during of the devastation in Gaza, famine, child casualties and outrage about the rejection of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their involvement, that consensus has disintegrated. The moderate Zionist position {has lost|no longer