A Dissolution of the Zionist Consensus Within US Jewish Community: What's Taking Shape Today.

It has been the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, an event that shook world Jewry like no other occurrence since the founding of the Jewish state.

Within Jewish communities the event proved profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The whole Zionist project rested on the belief that the nation could stop things like this repeating.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. But the response Israel pursued – the obliteration of Gaza, the casualties of tens of thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. This particular approach made more difficult how many US Jewish community members grappled with the October 7th events that set it in motion, and it now complicates the community's remembrance of that date. How does one honor and reflect on a tragedy affecting their nation during an atrocity being inflicted upon other individuals in your name?

The Challenge of Mourning

The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the circumstance where no agreement exists as to what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the last two years have witnessed the collapse of a fifty-year unity about the Zionist movement.

The origins of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations extends as far back as writings from 1915 by the lawyer subsequently appointed supreme court justice Justice Brandeis titled “Jewish Issues; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity became firmly established following the Six-Day War during 1967. Earlier, American Jewry housed a fragile but stable parallel existence between groups that had a range of views concerning the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

Such cohabitation endured during the post-war decades, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, within the neutral US Jewish group, within the critical American Council for Judaism and comparable entities. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Zionism had greater religious significance than political, and he did not permit singing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Furthermore, Zionist ideology the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism before the six-day war. Different Jewish identity models coexisted.

However following Israel routed adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict that year, taking control of areas such as Palestinian territories, Gaza, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to Israel evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, combined with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, produced an increasing conviction in the country’s critical importance for Jewish communities, and created pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric regarding the “miraculous” aspect of the success and the freeing of territory provided Zionism a religious, potentially salvific, meaning. During that enthusiastic period, considerable existing hesitation toward Israel disappeared. In the early 1970s, Publication editor Podhoretz declared: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The unified position did not include Haredi Jews – who generally maintained a Jewish state should only be established via conventional understanding of redemption – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and nearly all unaffiliated individuals. The predominant version of the consensus, identified as liberal Zionism, was based on the conviction in Israel as a progressive and free – while majority-Jewish – state. Many American Jews saw the administration of Palestinian, Syrian and Egypt's territories after 1967 as provisional, assuming that a resolution would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish demographic dominance within Israel's original borders and regional acceptance of the nation.

Several cohorts of American Jews grew up with support for Israel an essential component of their religious identity. Israel became a key component in Jewish learning. Israel’s Independence Day evolved into a religious observance. Israeli flags decorated many temples. Summer camps were permeated with Hebrew music and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting and teaching American teenagers national traditions. Travel to Israel increased and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs in 1999, offering complimentary travel to the nation was offered to Jewish young adults. Israel permeated nearly every aspect of US Jewish life.

Evolving Situation

Paradoxically, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry became adept at religious pluralism. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups expanded.

Except when it came to support for Israel – that’s where tolerance found its boundary. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland was a given, and criticizing that narrative positioned you outside mainstream views – outside the community, as Tablet magazine labeled it in writing that year.

However currently, during of the ruin within Gaza, food shortages, dead and orphaned children and frustration about the rejection of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their responsibility, that consensus has disintegrated. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer