The Dissolution of the Zionist Consensus Within US Jews: What's Emerging Today.

It has been that deadly assault of October 7, 2023, an event that deeply affected global Jewish populations more than any event since the founding of the Jewish state.

Among Jewish people the event proved shocking. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist endeavor rested on the presumption that the Jewish state would prevent things like this from ever happening again.

A response seemed necessary. Yet the chosen course that Israel implemented – the widespread destruction of Gaza, the casualties of many thousands ordinary people – constituted a specific policy. This particular approach complicated the perspective of many Jewish Americans processed the attack that set it in motion, and currently challenges the community's commemoration of that date. How does one honor and reflect on a horrific event targeting their community while simultaneously devastation being inflicted upon other individuals in your name?

The Challenge of Mourning

The challenge of mourning exists because of the fact that there is no consensus about what any of this means. Indeed, for the American Jewish community, the recent twenty-four months have witnessed the collapse of a half-century-old agreement about the Zionist movement.

The origins of a Zionist consensus among American Jewry extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication authored by an attorney subsequently appointed supreme court justice Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Question; How to Solve it”. Yet the unity became firmly established following the 1967 conflict in 1967. Earlier, Jewish Americans housed a vulnerable but enduring parallel existence between groups holding a range of views regarding the requirement of a Jewish state – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Historical Context

Such cohabitation continued throughout the post-war decades, through surviving aspects of socialist Jewish movements, through the non-aligned US Jewish group, in the anti-Zionist Jewish organization and comparable entities. For Louis Finkelstein, the head at JTS, pro-Israel ideology was more spiritual rather than political, and he did not permit singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations during that period. Nor were Zionism and pro-Israelism the central focus for contemporary Orthodox communities until after that war. Jewish identitarian alternatives remained present.

But after Israel overcame adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict that year, occupying territories such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, the Golan and East Jerusalem, US Jewish relationship to Israel changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, coupled with persistent concerns regarding repeated persecution, resulted in a growing belief regarding Israel's vital role to the Jewish people, and generated admiration in its resilience. Rhetoric about the “miraculous” quality of the victory and the reclaiming of territory provided Zionism a spiritual, potentially salvific, meaning. During that enthusiastic period, considerable existing hesitation toward Israel disappeared. In that decade, Writer the commentator stated: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”

The Agreement and Restrictions

The Zionist consensus left out strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a Jewish state should only be ushered in by a traditional rendering of the messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The most popular form of the unified position, identified as liberal Zionism, was based on a belief about the nation as a progressive and liberal – while majority-Jewish – nation. Countless Jewish Americans saw the control of Palestinian, Syria's and Egypt's territories after 1967 as temporary, assuming that a solution would soon emerge that would ensure a Jewish majority within Israel's original borders and Middle Eastern approval of the state.

Two generations of US Jews were raised with support for Israel a core part of their religious identity. The nation became an important element of Jewish education. Israeli national day became a Jewish holiday. Israeli flags decorated many temples. Seasonal activities were permeated with Israeli songs and education of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting educating American teenagers national traditions. Trips to the nation grew and achieved record numbers through Birthright programs during that year, offering complimentary travel to the country was offered to Jewish young adults. Israel permeated virtually all areas of US Jewish life.

Shifting Landscape

Interestingly, in these decades post-1967, American Jewry grew skilled in religious diversity. Acceptance and discussion among different Jewish movements grew.

However regarding support for Israel – that’s where tolerance ended. Individuals might align with a conservative supporter or a leftwing Zionist, but support for Israel as a Jewish homeland remained unquestioned, and challenging that position categorized you outside the consensus – an “Un-Jew”, as Tablet magazine described it in a piece recently.

Yet presently, amid of the devastation of Gaza, famine, young victims and frustration regarding the refusal within Jewish communities who decline to acknowledge their involvement, that consensus has disintegrated. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer