The Breakdown of a Pro-Israel Agreement Among US Jewish Community: What's Emerging Now.

It has been the deadly assault of October 7, 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else since the establishment of the Jewish state.

For Jews the event proved deeply traumatic. For the Israeli government, it was deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project was founded on the presumption which held that Israel could stop things like this repeating.

Military action appeared unavoidable. Yet the chosen course Israel pursued – the widespread destruction of the Gaza Strip, the casualties of numerous non-combatants – represented a decision. And this choice made more difficult the perspective of many Jewish Americans processed the attack that set it in motion, and currently challenges their remembrance of the day. How does one grieve and remember a horrific event against your people during a catastrophe experienced by a different population in your name?

The Difficulty of Mourning

The difficulty surrounding remembrance stems from the fact that no agreement exists about the implications of these developments. In fact, within US Jewish circles, the last two years have witnessed the disintegration of a half-century-old consensus on Zionism itself.

The early development of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities dates back to an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar who would later become high court jurist Louis Brandeis named “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. However, the agreement really takes hold following the Six-Day War during 1967. Previously, US Jewish communities contained a delicate yet functioning coexistence among different factions which maintained different opinions regarding the requirement for Israel – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Background Information

Such cohabitation continued throughout the mid-twentieth century, within remaining elements of leftist Jewish organizations, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, within the critical religious group and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, pro-Israel ideology was primarily theological than political, and he did not permit the singing of Hatikvah, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in those years. Additionally, Zionist ideology the main element for contemporary Orthodox communities prior to that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives remained present.

Yet after Israel defeated its neighbors during the 1967 conflict in 1967, taking control of areas comprising Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish connection with the country evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, combined with enduring anxieties about another genocide, produced a developing perspective regarding Israel's essential significance to the Jewish people, and generated admiration in its resilience. Rhetoric about the remarkable quality of the victory and the freeing of areas gave Zionism a religious, almost redemptive, meaning. In that triumphant era, much of the remaining ambivalence regarding Zionism disappeared. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz declared: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The unified position 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 non-affiliated Jews. The predominant version of the unified position, what became known as progressive Zionism, was founded on the idea regarding Israel as a democratic and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – country. Countless Jewish Americans viewed the occupation of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as provisional, thinking that an agreement was forthcoming that would ensure Jewish population majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of the state.

Two generations of Jewish Americans were thus brought up with support for Israel a core part of their religious identity. The nation became a key component within religious instruction. Israel’s Independence Day evolved into a religious observance. Blue and white banners decorated many temples. Youth programs were permeated with national melodies and learning of the language, with Israeli guests instructing US young people national traditions. Travel to Israel increased and peaked through Birthright programs by 1999, when a free trip to Israel became available to Jewish young adults. Israel permeated virtually all areas of US Jewish life.

Shifting Landscape

Interestingly, in these decades post-1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise regarding denominational coexistence. Tolerance and communication between Jewish denominations grew.

Yet concerning Zionism and Israel – there existed tolerance reached its limit. One could identify as a right-leaning advocate or a liberal advocate, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland was assumed, and questioning that position positioned you beyond accepted boundaries – a non-conformist, as one publication described it in writing in 2021.

Yet presently, amid of the destruction of Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and anger over the denial of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their responsibility, that unity has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer