The Dissolution of the Pro-Israel Agreement Among US Jewish Community: What's Taking Shape Now.

Two years have passed since the deadly assault of 7 October 2023, an event that profoundly impacted Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else since the establishment of Israel as a nation.

Within Jewish communities the event proved shocking. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist endeavor rested on the presumption that the nation would ensure against things like this occurring in the future.

Military action appeared unavoidable. Yet the chosen course that Israel implemented – the comprehensive devastation of Gaza, the killing and maiming of many thousands ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This particular approach created complexity in the perspective of many US Jewish community members understood the October 7th events that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's observance of that date. How can someone grieve and remember a horrific event affecting their nation during an atrocity done to another people in your name?

The Challenge of Grieving

The difficulty of mourning lies in the circumstance where little unity prevails regarding the implications of these developments. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the breakdown of a fifty-year agreement on Zionism itself.

The origins of pro-Israel unity among American Jewry extends as far back as writings from 1915 by the lawyer subsequently appointed high court jurist Louis Brandeis called “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. But the consensus became firmly established subsequent to the 1967 conflict that year. Before then, US Jewish communities maintained a delicate yet functioning parallel existence among different factions holding a range of views about the necessity for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, non-Zionists and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

Such cohabitation persisted through the mid-twentieth century, through surviving aspects of Jewish socialism, through the non-aligned Jewish communal organization, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, Zionism was more spiritual rather than political, and he forbade performance of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Additionally, Zionist ideology the centerpiece for contemporary Orthodox communities until after the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives remained present.

But after Israel routed adjacent nations in the six-day war in 1967, seizing land including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish relationship to the nation changed dramatically. Israel’s victory, along with longstanding fears about another genocide, produced a developing perspective regarding Israel's essential significance to the Jewish people, and a source of pride in its resilience. Rhetoric about the extraordinary nature of the victory and the “liberation” of areas gave the movement a theological, even messianic, importance. In that triumphant era, considerable existing hesitation about Zionism disappeared. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor Podhoretz declared: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Consensus and Its Limits

The Zionist consensus left out Haredi Jews – who typically thought a nation should only emerge by a traditional rendering of redemption – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and the majority of secular Jews. The predominant version of the consensus, later termed left-leaning Zionism, was established on the idea in Israel as a liberal and free – while majority-Jewish – country. Numerous US Jews considered the occupation of Arab, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as provisional, believing that a resolution was forthcoming that would guarantee Jewish population majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of Israel.

Two generations of Jewish Americans were raised with Zionism a fundamental aspect of their religious identity. The state transformed into a central part of Jewish education. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. Israeli flags adorned religious institutions. Seasonal activities became infused with Hebrew music and education of modern Hebrew, with Israeli guests instructing US young people national traditions. Travel to Israel increased and reached new heights through Birthright programs during that year, providing no-cost visits to Israel was provided to Jewish young adults. The nation influenced virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.

Changing Dynamics

Interestingly, throughout these years post-1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise regarding denominational coexistence. Open-mindedness and discussion among different Jewish movements grew.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – that’s where diversity found its boundary. One could identify as a conservative supporter or a liberal advocate, but support for Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and questioning that narrative placed you outside the consensus – a non-conformist, as Tablet magazine described it in writing in 2021.

However currently, under the weight of the ruin in Gaza, starvation, child casualties and frustration about the rejection by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their involvement, that agreement has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer