In the fall of 1948, the state of Israel was legally established by way of a vote in the United Nations General Assembly. Eleven minutes after the roll call, the United States recognized the Jewish State. Soviet support soon followed. Although the two Great Powers were in agreement, some American Jewish organizations only grudgingly and belatedly accepted this solution for dealing with the plight of world Jewry.

If we define Zionism, in its most basic sense, as the effort to create a nation-state for the Jews in their ancient home in the Middle East, we can best clarify the cross currents of policy and history that would soon beleaguer the American Zionist movement.

In the period immediately following World War I, until the horror of the Holocaust was publicly revealed in the early 1940’s, various streams of American Jewry considered themselves anti-Zionist; i.e. not supportive of their brethren’s efforts to create a Jewish State in the Middle East. This was so for a variety of political, religious and social reasons, but the split was ever-present beginning as late as the end of the nineteenth century. Only with the gradual un-peeling of the enormity of the Holocaust came a widespread recognition that the most viable solution for the plight of the remnants of European Jewry was a state of their own. Despite the presence on the land of a hostile Arab community that had been living alongside its Jewish neighbors, world leaders ignored reality and hoped for the best. Their plans and expectations were not to be.

Political battles between Arabs and Jews would, and still continue, and wars would be fought; Israel has survived. But, victory in the June 1967 Six Day War brought her a new set of existential problems based upon an increase in territory and an unfriendly population. It is those problems that remain at the heart of American Jewish concerns.

A majority of the American Jewish community has, since the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sided with the Democrats and been politically liberal. Most of those Jews then, and today, are not religiously Orthodox and identify with the Reform and Conservative religious movements. But, as I discussed in an earlier Blog, divisions between the various religious streams has intensified both socially (e.g. abortion, religion-in-the schools, same sex marriage, etc.) and politically, especially regarding the future of Israel and the territories she occupied following victory in the Six Day War.

Remarkably, until relatively recently, strong American political support for Israel was a bi-partisan political issue. Unfortunately, during the Obama era, that began to change. The policies and actions of President Trump only intensified the political polarization and debate among America’s Jews, and not only regarding the Middle East. While  this has created  a difficult predicament for them, it is particularly problematic and even dangerous for the safety and security of Israel. Why? The next Blogpost will provide some answers.