The split in the Jewish world

New Yorker -   Even the word “Zionism” now stirs fierce debate. In the view of Israel’s founders, few American Jews today would qualify as Zionists, since they have chosen to live in another country rather than to participate in the building of a Jewish national home in Palestine, which was classical Zionism’s chief aspiration and goal. But, for many American Jews, Zionism has come to represent the belief that there should be such a home—both because of the Jewish people’s ties to their ancestral land and because of the centuries of persecution that Jews endured, culminating with the Holocaust. This form of Zionism remains deeply rooted in the American Jewish community, particularly the Modern Orthodox branch. At many Jewish institutions, rejecting Zionism is indeed regarded as a form of sacrilege. But more and more American Jews are having a hard time reconciling other core features of their identity, such as a belief in equality and social justice, with support for a country whose current leaders—a far-right alliance headed by Benjamin Netanyahu—pass racist laws and espouse Jewish supremacy. Some Jews have gone further, condemning Israel as an illiberal “ethno-state” that oppresses Palestinians and should be abolished in its current form.

This past October, a survey by the Washington Post found that forty-six per cent of American Jews supported the war in Gaza and forty-eight per cent opposed it. Thirty-nine per cent believed that Israel had committed genocide. Disagreements over the war have disrupted family dinners, upended friendships, and splintered congregations. Last fall, in a sermon delivered during Rosh Hashanah, Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue, in Manhattan, declared that she had never been more afraid to talk about Israel, for fear of offending some worshippers. “I want to tell you about my unconditional love for the Israeli people and our beleaguered homeland, still desperately struggling to bring its hostages home, still trying to eliminate Hamas terrorists that not only refuse to lay down their arms but intentionally trap their own people in a combat zone,” Buchdahl said. “But if I tell you these things, all of which I believe, some of you will stop listening and decide that I’m no longer your rabbi.”