A Breakdown of the Zionist Agreement Within American Jewish Community: What Is Emerging Now.
It has been the deadly assault of October 7, 2023, an event that deeply affected world Jewry unlike anything else since the establishment of the Jewish state.
Among Jewish people the event proved shocking. For the Israeli government, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The entire Zionist endeavor had been established on the assumption which held that the nation would prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again.
A response appeared unavoidable. But the response that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the killing and maiming of numerous ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This selected path created complexity in the perspective of many Jewish Americans grappled with the attack that triggered it, and it now complicates the community's remembrance of the day. In what way can people grieve and remember an atrocity targeting their community during an atrocity being inflicted upon other individuals in your name?
The Difficulty of Mourning
The complexity surrounding remembrance stems from the fact that there is no consensus regarding the implications of these developments. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the disintegration of a half-century-old agreement regarding Zionism.
The early development of pro-Israel unity among American Jewry dates back to a 1915 essay written by a legal scholar who would later become Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis named “The Jewish Question; Addressing the Challenge”. Yet the unity really takes hold after the Six-Day War in 1967. Before then, American Jewry contained a delicate yet functioning coexistence across various segments that had different opinions concerning the requirement of a Jewish state – Zionists, neutral parties and opponents.
Background Information
That coexistence persisted through the mid-twentieth century, through surviving aspects of socialist Jewish movements, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, in the anti-Zionist religious group and other organizations. Regarding Chancellor Finkelstein, the leader of the theological institution, the Zionist movement had greater religious significance than political, and he prohibited the singing of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, at JTS ordinations in those years. Additionally, Zionism and pro-Israelism the main element within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the six-day war. Different Jewish identity models existed alongside.
Yet after Israel defeated neighboring countries in the six-day war that year, seizing land comprising the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish relationship to the country changed dramatically. The military success, combined with enduring anxieties about another genocide, led to a growing belief regarding Israel's essential significance within Jewish identity, and created pride regarding its endurance. Rhetoric concerning the extraordinary quality of the success and the freeing of territory assigned Zionism a religious, potentially salvific, significance. In that triumphant era, a significant portion of the remaining ambivalence toward Israel dissipated. In the early 1970s, Publication editor Norman Podhoretz stated: “We are all Zionists now.”
The Consensus and Its Limits
The pro-Israel agreement did not include strictly Orthodox communities – who generally maintained Israel should only be established via conventional understanding of the Messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative, Modern Orthodox and nearly all unaffiliated individuals. The common interpretation of this agreement, what became known as liberal Zionism, was established on the conviction in Israel as a progressive and liberal – though Jewish-centered – state. Numerous US Jews viewed the administration of Arab, Syrian and Egyptian lands post-1967 as temporary, assuming that a solution would soon emerge that would guarantee Jewish demographic dominance in Israel proper and neighbor recognition of the nation.
Multiple generations of Jewish Americans grew up with support for Israel an essential component of their identity as Jews. The state transformed into a key component in Jewish learning. Yom Ha'atzmaut became a Jewish holiday. National symbols decorated religious institutions. Summer camps became infused with Israeli songs and education of the language, with visitors from Israel instructing US young people Israeli culture. Trips to the nation expanded and peaked through Birthright programs during that year, providing no-cost visits to the country became available to US Jewish youth. The nation influenced almost the entirety of Jewish American identity.
Shifting Landscape
Interestingly, during this period post-1967, US Jewish communities grew skilled in religious diversity. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups increased.
However regarding Zionism and Israel – that’s where pluralism reached its limit. You could be a conservative supporter or a progressive supporter, but support for Israel as a Jewish state remained unquestioned, and criticizing that perspective placed you outside mainstream views – a non-conformist, as Tablet magazine described it in writing that year.
However currently, during of the devastation of Gaza, famine, dead and orphaned children and outrage over the denial of many fellow Jews who refuse to recognize their responsibility, that consensus has collapsed. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer
