The Dissolution of the Pro-Israel Agreement Within American Jewish Community: What Is Taking Shape Now.
Marking two years after that mass murder of 7 October 2023, which shook Jewish communities worldwide unlike anything else following the creation of Israel as a nation.
For Jews the event proved deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist endeavor was founded on the presumption that the Jewish state would prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again.
A response was inevitable. However, the particular response Israel pursued – the obliteration of Gaza, the casualties of numerous non-combatants – was a choice. And this choice made more difficult the perspective of many US Jewish community members processed the attack that set it in motion, and it now complicates the community's commemoration of that date. How can someone honor and reflect on a tragedy targeting their community in the midst of devastation experienced by other individuals connected to their community?
The Challenge of Grieving
The complexity of mourning stems from the circumstance where there is no consensus about the significance of these events. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have seen the collapse of a fifty-year consensus regarding Zionism.
The origins of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations dates back to writings from 1915 authored by an attorney who would later become Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis named “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. But the consensus really takes hold after the 1967 conflict in 1967. Earlier, Jewish Americans housed a fragile but stable parallel existence across various segments which maintained a range of views about the need for a Jewish nation – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and opponents.
Background Information
This parallel existence endured through the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of Jewish socialism, in the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee, in the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and other organizations. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, the Zionist movement was more spiritual instead of governmental, and he forbade the singing of Israel's anthem, the national song, during seminary ceremonies during that period. Additionally, support for Israel the centerpiece within modern Orthodox Judaism until after that war. Different Jewish identity models remained present.
But after Israel defeated adjacent nations in the six-day war during that period, occupying territories comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan and East Jerusalem, US Jewish relationship to Israel underwent significant transformation. The triumphant outcome, along with longstanding fears of a “second Holocaust”, led to an increasing conviction about the nation's vital role within Jewish identity, and generated admiration for its strength. Rhetoric concerning the “miraculous” aspect of the success and the freeing of areas gave Zionism a theological, potentially salvific, importance. In that triumphant era, much of previous uncertainty regarding Zionism vanished. In the early 1970s, Commentary magazine editor the commentator famously proclaimed: “We are all Zionists now.”
The Unity and Its Limits
The Zionist consensus left out strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained Israel should only emerge via conventional understanding of redemption – however joined Reform, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The common interpretation of the unified position, what became known as left-leaning Zionism, was based on a belief in Israel as a democratic and democratic – while majority-Jewish – nation. Numerous US Jews saw the administration of local, Syria's and Egypt's territories following the war as temporary, believing that a solution was forthcoming that would guarantee Jewish population majority in Israel proper and regional acceptance of Israel.
Multiple generations of Jewish Americans were raised with pro-Israel ideology a fundamental aspect of their identity as Jews. The nation became an important element within religious instruction. Israeli national day became a Jewish holiday. Blue and white banners were displayed in religious institutions. Seasonal activities were permeated with national melodies and the study of modern Hebrew, with Israelis visiting educating American youth Israeli customs. Trips to the nation expanded and achieved record numbers via educational trips in 1999, providing no-cost visits to Israel became available to US Jewish youth. The nation influenced nearly every aspect of US Jewish life.
Shifting Landscape
Interestingly, during this period post-1967, Jewish Americans developed expertise in religious diversity. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups grew.
Yet concerning the Israeli situation – that’s where diversity reached its limit. One could identify as a rightwing Zionist or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and questioning that position positioned you outside mainstream views – an “Un-Jew”, as Tablet magazine labeled it in an essay recently.
However currently, under the weight of the ruin in Gaza, food shortages, young victims and outrage over the denial within Jewish communities who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that unity has collapsed. The liberal Zionist “center” {has lost|no longer
