The Collapse of the Pro-Israel Consensus Within American Jews: What Is Emerging Now.

It has been the horrific attack of the events of October 7th, which deeply affected world Jewry more than any event since the founding of the Jewish state.

Within Jewish communities the event proved deeply traumatic. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist project was founded on the assumption that Israel would ensure against such atrocities occurring in the future.

A response was inevitable. But the response undertaken by Israel – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of many thousands ordinary people – represented a decision. And this choice created complexity in the way numerous Jewish Americans processed the attack that triggered it, and presently makes difficult the community's remembrance of the day. How does one mourn and commemorate a tragedy targeting their community in the midst of an atrocity experienced by another people attributed to their identity?

The Challenge of Remembrance

The difficulty in grieving exists because of the circumstance where no agreement exists regarding what any of this means. Indeed, within US Jewish circles, this two-year period have experienced the disintegration of a half-century-old agreement regarding Zionism.

The early development of pro-Israel unity within US Jewish communities can be traced to writings from 1915 written by a legal scholar who would later become high court jurist Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. However, the agreement truly solidified after the 1967 conflict that year. Earlier, US Jewish communities maintained a fragile but stable parallel existence between groups which maintained different opinions about the necessity of a Jewish state – Zionists, non-Zionists and opponents.

Background Information

This parallel existence endured through the post-war decades, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, among the opposing Jewish organization and other organizations. In the view of Louis Finkelstein, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Zionism had greater religious significance than political, and he prohibited performance of Hatikvah, Hatikvah, at religious school events in those years. Furthermore, Zionism and pro-Israelism the central focus for contemporary Orthodox communities before that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

However following Israel routed neighboring countries in the six-day war that year, taking control of areas comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, US Jewish connection with the country changed dramatically. Israel’s victory, along with enduring anxieties about another genocide, led to a developing perspective about the nation's essential significance for Jewish communities, and generated admiration regarding its endurance. Language concerning the “miraculous” quality of the success and the reclaiming of territory gave the movement a religious, even messianic, meaning. In those heady years, considerable existing hesitation toward Israel vanished. During the seventies, Commentary magazine editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”

The Unity and Restrictions

The Zionist consensus left out the ultra-Orthodox – who generally maintained a nation should only emerge through traditional interpretation of the messiah – yet included Reform, Conservative Judaism, contemporary Orthodox and most unaffiliated individuals. The predominant version of the consensus, what became known as progressive Zionism, was established on a belief about the nation as a progressive and free – while majority-Jewish – country. Many American Jews viewed the control of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as temporary, assuming that an agreement was forthcoming that would maintain Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Multiple generations of Jewish Americans were raised with support for Israel a fundamental aspect of their Jewish identity. The state transformed into a central part of Jewish education. Israeli national day turned into a celebration. Israeli flags were displayed in most synagogues. Summer camps became infused with national melodies and education of modern Hebrew, with visitors from Israel educating American youth Israeli culture. Visits to Israel expanded and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs by 1999, providing no-cost visits to the nation became available to young American Jews. The state affected nearly every aspect of US Jewish life.

Evolving Situation

Paradoxically, throughout these years post-1967, American Jewry developed expertise in religious diversity. Acceptance and communication across various Jewish groups expanded.

However regarding the Israeli situation – there existed diversity ended. You could be a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and challenging that narrative positioned you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as one publication labeled it in an essay recently.

But now, during of the destruction of Gaza, famine, young victims and frustration regarding the refusal of many fellow Jews who avoid admitting their responsibility, that unity has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer