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Marking two years after the horrific attack of October 7, 2023, which deeply affected Jewish communities worldwide like no other occurrence following the founding of Israel as a nation.

Among Jewish people the event proved deeply traumatic. For Israel as a nation, the situation represented a profound disgrace. The whole Zionist endeavor had been established on the belief which held that the Jewish state could stop things like this occurring in the future.

Some form of retaliation appeared unavoidable. But the response Israel pursued – the widespread destruction of the Gaza Strip, the deaths and injuries of numerous ordinary people – was a choice. And this choice complicated how many Jewish Americans understood the initial assault that triggered it, and currently challenges the community's remembrance of the day. How can someone mourn and commemorate a tragedy against your people during a catastrophe being inflicted upon a different population in your name?

The Difficulty of Remembrance

The complexity of mourning lies in the circumstance where little unity prevails about the implications of these developments. Actually, among Jewish Americans, this two-year period have experienced the collapse of a half-century-old consensus about the Zionist movement.

The early development of Zionist agreement within US Jewish communities extends as far back as an early twentieth-century publication by the lawyer subsequently appointed high court jurist Justice Brandeis called “The Jewish Question; Finding Solutions”. But the consensus really takes hold after the Six-Day War during 1967. Before then, American Jewry housed a delicate yet functioning cohabitation among different factions holding a range of views concerning the necessity for Israel – pro-Israel advocates, neutral parties and anti-Zionists.

Previous Developments

That coexistence continued during the post-war decades, in remnants of leftist Jewish organizations, in the non-Zionist US Jewish group, within the critical Jewish organization and similar institutions. For Louis Finkelstein, the head of the theological institution, the Zionist movement had greater religious significance rather than political, and he did not permit the singing of the Israeli national anthem, the Israeli national anthem, at JTS ordinations in the early 1960s. Additionally, support for Israel the central focus within modern Orthodox Judaism prior to the six-day war. Jewish identitarian alternatives existed alongside.

Yet after Israel routed adjacent nations during the 1967 conflict in 1967, occupying territories such as Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Jerusalem's eastern sector, the American Jewish perspective on the country evolved considerably. Israel’s victory, coupled with persistent concerns about another genocide, resulted in a developing perspective in the country’s essential significance to the Jewish people, and generated admiration for its strength. Language about the “miraculous” nature of the victory and the reclaiming of land gave the Zionist project a religious, even messianic, meaning. During that enthusiastic period, considerable the remaining ambivalence about Zionism vanished. In that decade, Writer Norman Podhoretz stated: “Zionism unites us all.”

The Agreement and Its Boundaries

The pro-Israel agreement left out strictly Orthodox communities – who largely believed a nation should only be established by a traditional rendering of redemption – however joined Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Modern Orthodox and nearly all secular Jews. The predominant version of the consensus, later termed progressive Zionism, was established on the conviction about the nation as a democratic and free – albeit ethnocentric – state. Many American Jews viewed the administration of Arab, Syria's and Egyptian lands after 1967 as not permanent, thinking that a resolution was forthcoming that would ensure a Jewish majority in pre-1967 Israel and regional acceptance of Israel.

Two generations of American Jews were raised with Zionism an essential component of their religious identity. The nation became a key component within religious instruction. Yom Ha'atzmaut turned into a celebration. Blue and white banners decorated many temples. Youth programs integrated with Hebrew music and learning of contemporary Hebrew, with Israelis visiting educating American youth Israeli culture. Visits to Israel grew and peaked with Birthright Israel in 1999, when a free trip to the nation became available to Jewish young adults. The state affected nearly every aspect of Jewish American identity.

Changing Dynamics

Paradoxically, throughout these years after 1967, US Jewish communities developed expertise regarding denominational coexistence. Open-mindedness and communication between Jewish denominations expanded.

Except when it came to Zionism and Israel – that represented diversity found its boundary. Individuals might align with a rightwing Zionist or a progressive supporter, yet backing Israel as a majority-Jewish country remained unquestioned, and challenging that narrative categorized you beyond accepted boundaries – outside the community, as Tablet magazine termed it in writing that year.

However currently, during of the ruin of Gaza, starvation, child casualties and outrage regarding the refusal within Jewish communities who refuse to recognize their responsibility, that unity has broken down. The centrist pro-Israel view {has lost|no longer