The Collapse of the Zionist Agreement Among American Jews: What's Emerging Now.
Marking two years after the mass murder of the events of October 7th, which shook Jewish communities worldwide more than any event since the founding of Israel as a nation.
Among Jewish people the event proved profoundly disturbing. For Israel as a nation, it was deeply humiliating. The entire Zionist project had been established on the assumption that the Jewish state could stop things like this occurring in the future.
A response was inevitable. However, the particular response undertaken by Israel – the obliteration of Gaza, the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of civilians – constituted a specific policy. And this choice complicated how many US Jewish community members understood the initial assault that triggered it, and presently makes difficult their remembrance of the day. How does one mourn and commemorate a horrific event affecting their nation while simultaneously a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population connected to their community?
The Difficulty of Grieving
The difficulty of mourning lies in the fact that little unity prevails regarding what any of this means. Actually, within US Jewish circles, the recent twenty-four months have experienced the disintegration of a decades-long agreement on Zionism itself.
The beginnings of a Zionist consensus across American Jewish populations extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication written by a legal scholar and then future Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis titled “The Jewish Problem; Finding Solutions”. However, the agreement really takes hold after the six-day war in 1967. Previously, American Jewry contained a delicate yet functioning cohabitation between groups which maintained a range of views about the necessity of a Jewish state – Zionists, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.
Historical Context
This parallel existence continued throughout the mid-twentieth century, in remnants of socialist Jewish movements, through the non-aligned American Jewish Committee, within the critical religious group and comparable entities. For Louis Finkelstein, the head of the theological institution, pro-Israel ideology had greater religious significance than political, and he forbade singing Israel's anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at religious school events during that period. Nor were support for Israel the central focus for contemporary Orthodox communities before the 1967 conflict. Jewish identitarian alternatives coexisted.
Yet after Israel defeated its neighbors in that war during that period, taking control of areas comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, the American Jewish perspective on the nation changed dramatically. The triumphant outcome, coupled with enduring anxieties about another genocide, led to a growing belief about the nation's essential significance within Jewish identity, and created pride in its resilience. Language concerning the extraordinary quality of the outcome and the “liberation” of areas assigned the Zionist project a theological, potentially salvific, significance. In that triumphant era, considerable the remaining ambivalence regarding Zionism vanished. In that decade, Publication editor the commentator stated: “Everyone supports Zionism today.”
The Consensus and Its Limits
The pro-Israel agreement did not include Haredi Jews – who generally maintained Israel should only be established through traditional interpretation of the Messiah – but united Reform Judaism, Conservative, contemporary Orthodox and most non-affiliated Jews. The predominant version of this agreement, identified as left-leaning Zionism, was based on the conviction in Israel as a liberal and democratic – albeit ethnocentric – state. Countless Jewish Americans considered the occupation of Arab, Syria's and Egyptian lands post-1967 as temporary, assuming that a resolution would soon emerge that would maintain Jewish population majority in pre-1967 Israel and neighbor recognition of Israel.
Multiple generations of Jewish Americans grew up with support for Israel an essential component of their religious identity. The nation became an important element within religious instruction. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners decorated most synagogues. Summer camps were permeated with Hebrew music and learning of modern Hebrew, with Israeli guests and teaching US young people Israeli culture. Visits to Israel increased and achieved record numbers via educational trips during that year, offering complimentary travel to the country was provided to young American Jews. The nation influenced virtually all areas of the American Jewish experience.
Changing Dynamics
Interestingly, during this period post-1967, US Jewish communities grew skilled in religious diversity. Tolerance and dialogue across various Jewish groups increased.
Yet concerning the Israeli situation – there existed pluralism ended. Individuals might align with a conservative supporter or a liberal advocate, yet backing Israel as a Jewish homeland was assumed, and challenging that position categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – an “Un-Jew”, as Tablet magazine described it in writing that year.
Yet presently, under the weight of the devastation of Gaza, starvation, dead and orphaned children and frustration over the denial by numerous Jewish individuals who avoid admitting their complicity, that agreement has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer
