Is Gaza the Demise of North American Jewish Pluralism? “Herzog-gate,” the Zionist Consensus, and the Hazards of Peoplehood

thoughts on the fall-out in a time of transition

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It is often said that one of the most productive and successful aspects of American Judaism in the past forty or fifty years was the adaptation and implementation of pluralism. While there is much to say to attenuate that sweeping proclamation, in practice, on matters of religion at least, American Jews have, as they say, largely “agree to disagree” in various ways, and adapt a semblance of tolerance regarding communal and religious norms. Much of this was the product of various organizations such as CLAL, the Hartman Institute, JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) and a variety of other inter-denominational synagogue-based initiatives that sought to create permeable boundaries sufficient to absorb difference without dissent, or unity without conformity.

One can see this in a variety of ways: inter-denominational partnership and rabbinic boards, synagogues allowing different kinds of minyanim (mehitza, egalitarian, trad-egal, partnership minyanim, etc.). More recently, the integration of LGBTQ+ Jews, the ascendant representation of “Jews of Color,” and the acceptance of various kinds of differing norms and practices.

Noticeably, matters of belief mattered less in this period; questions that vexed our ancestors such as “Torah from Heaven,” biblical criticism, creation ex-nihilo, even belief in a personal God, no longer seemed to create the divisions and even schisms they once did. This sparked various studies such as Menachem Kellner’s Must a Jew Believe Anything? and Marc B. Shapiro’s The Limits of Orthodox Theology on Maimonides 13 Principle of Faith. Each in different ways revised our understanding of belief requirements in classical Judaism, ironically at a time when those requirements seemed to mean less and less.

I suggest one reason for this is that Jewish modernity initiated a severance of Jews and Judaism that by the late 20th century had come to maturation. A combination of emancipation and secularization created a divide whereby the Jew/Jews and Judaism began to occupy different spaces in collective Jewish consciousness, and not only among those who abandoned religion but even those who retained fidelity to it. When we think about pluralism in a pre-modern context regarding matters of belief or practice (doctrine, halakha, custom), debates revolved around double-truth theories or the multiple iterations of divine revelation. These are largely no longer the philosophical/theological arguments operative today.

One way to illustrate the difference is to note the difference between a lens and a tool. Before the Enlightenment, Judaism was mostly the lens through which Jews were identified as Jews and the way Jews identified as Jewish (thus in those days anti-Judaism was a more accurate term than antisemitism). There was a time in Spain of “pure blood theory” (la limieza de sangra) that began to racialize the Jew, but for the most part Jews and Judaism were intertwined until the race science of the 19th century coupled with secularization. Today, Judaism is no longer a lens, rather it serves mostly a tool whereby the deracinated or alienated Jew can identify with being more Jewish. Jewishness may be inherited, but today Judaism is always a choice. The great cultural Zionist Ahad ha-Am once famously said “it’s not that the Jews kept the Sabbath, but the Sabbath kept the Jew.” I think “the Sabbath kept the Jew” is a modern secular reflection of an imagined past. I am not sure Maimonides would understand the distinction.

Pluralism

In any case, one way of navigating these differences is through the category of heresy (apikorsut) that was operative in those pre-modern times. That is, doctrinal boundaries were also communal boundaries, even if they functioned differently for Jews than in Christian heresiology. Think of the Rabbanite-Karaite schism, Sabbateanism, etc. The 1772 writ of excommunication against the Hasidic “cult” didn’t have the same impact for historical as well as communal reasons. Hasidim remained in the fold and soon dominated Eastern Europe. The writ of excommunication could not bear the weight of Hasidism’s popularity.

But even in that case, the pluralism debate was about “truth,” either the truth of Torah from Sinai or the possibility of multiple truths therein. It was about doctrinal matters or what one might call matters of theology. On the latter, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s words are apt, “Pluralism asserts only that the object reveals itself in manifold ways to the subject, and that a certain telos corresponds to each of these manifestations. (Halakhic Mind, 16). Other examples can be found in the writings of Rav Kook and elsewhere.

My understanding is that the pluralism today is of a different nature. It is no longer really about Judaism; it is about Jews, particularly the Jewish collective. Mostly, it is about Israel. Put otherwise, whereas in previous periods the notion of Jews as a people (‘am yisrael) was inextricably tied to Torah, today the Jewish collective is separate from Torah (each group having its own relationship to it, from Haredim to Bundists) and inextricably tied to Israel, or made to feel it should be. Soloveitchik and Kook may be two latter exemplars of a pre-modern notions of pluralism.

Peoplehood

Today, pluralism has almost exclusively a social function. The operative term to describe this shift is known as “peoplehood.” Peoplehood was a neologism invented in the 1920s by rabbis Mordecai Kaplan and Steven Wise arguably as a term to enable Jews in America to identify with nascent Zionism without the fear of dual allegiance, that is, as an alternative to Jewish nationalism. (On this see Noam Pianko’s Peoplehood: An American Innovation, 2015). As a nationality, Jews in America were fully American (they hold American passports and served in the American military), but as a people they were connected to a nation they choose not to live in (and for which they hold no citizenship, voting rights, nor serve in the military). Another term aside from nationalism was necessary to define this affiliation – thus “peoplehood.”

Peoplehood has since become ubiquitous in American Jewry, a label for everything “Jewish,” with its center being Zionism and pro-Israelism. I do not think that is what Ahad Ha-Am had in mind when he dreamed of Israel as a “spiritual center” for Diaspora Jews. Peoplehood has become so ubiquitous that it is sometimes thought to have ancient roots even though our ancestors would have no idea what the suffix “hood” meant, a suffix that refers to a “state of being” or “condition.” For our ancestors, Jewishness was not a condition or a state of being, it was a fact accompanied by a theological burden (‘ol malkhut shamayim). Am Yisrael essentially meant Am shel Torah. If one abandoned Torah, one disidentified with the “people,” thus heresy. Spinoza was an exception in that he was excommunicated yet never disidentified as a Jew (never converted to another religion). Thus, he was called by some “the first modern Jew.”

Baruch Spinoza

If we say that the boundaries of the diversified Torah (belief and practice) no longer serve as borders for “Jewishness” in this new era of “peoplehood,” what does? We know, of course, that all pluralism requires boundaries, it constitutes diversity within a self-defined orbit of unity. In a secular society that “unity” is often constituted by a cultural “consensus.” And thus, I suggest that the boundaries of unity that enables today’s pluralism is what I would call the “Zionist consensus.” Not God, not Torah, or mitzvot, those exist (or don’t) in various iterations within the pluralistic orbit of Zionism or pro-Israelism (I use these terms interchangeably here even though they are not identical). In various recent writings, Arnie Eisen and Elliot Cosgrove have made that explicit.

Part of the success of Jewish pluralism in America in the past half century has been Zionism as a stable center, which of course took various forms. The remnant of anti-Zionism among the ultra-Orthodox was tolerated because they were deemed “outside the mainstream,” a mainstream they ironically hardly even recognized as Jewish (but that is another story – today about 1/3 of New York City Jews are haredi, hardly marginal). This has functioned quite well for quite some time, with periodic aberrations such as Meir Kahane and the JDL.

Until Gaza.

The destruction of Gaza in 2023-2005 fractured the “peoplehood” model, arguably caused a collapse of the “Zionist consensus,” and strained pluralism to its breaking point. The reason in part is that those who already viewed themselves on the margins of the consensus, who Donniel Hartman calls the “troubled committed,” became the “untroubled uncommitted.” ( “Liberal Zionism and the Troubled Committed — Sources Journal” here). That is, Gaza broke the connection of commitment to Israel that undermined the consensus. This threw pluralism into crisis. The reason for his rupture? Moral conscience that was often articulated through new-found religion (agree of disagree, that is the claim, e.g. “not in our name” etc.). Thus, the emergence of anti-Zionist minyanim, sedarim at the encampments in 2024, Yom Kippur and Sukkot at Occupy in Zuccotti Park in 2010. These Jews who turned away for Zionism breaking the consensus are not Abby Hoffmans, Mark Rudds, or Jerry Rubins, secular leaders of the American counterculture of the 1960s. Many are literate Jews who take Judaism seriously.

Now that religion traditionally conceived no longer serves as the boundary in which pluralism functions, and Zionism has created a moral dilemma for increasing numbers of American Jews refracted as religious conscience, what container can assure the survival of pluralism today? The center yields nothing. I think what we are seeing in this moment is the emergence of a new kind of “secular heresy” a consequence that illustrates the weakening or demise, not the fortification, of pluralism. That is, lines of legitimacy are being re-drawn and policed in part to accommodate a desperate attempt to salvage the consensus even at the expense of pluralism. That is the end of pluralism as we knew it.

One can bring many examples. I will bring three, two personal, and one public. I was invited to speak at a large Conservative synagogue in Manhattan and was then told that their policy is that “no one who is not a Zionist is permitted to speak from the pulpit.” I have never heard of such a rule in a Conservative synagogue. It is an odd rule given the history of the Conservative movement. Yes, it has been a Zionist movement for a long time (see its programmatic mandate Emet ve Emunah on Israel), but also one committed to pluralism and tolerance of different views.

I am sure believing in Torah from Heaven is not a rule, nor Sabbath observance, nor dietary laws. A speaker can take an Uber to the synagogue on Shabbat after eating a cheeseburger and they would be graciously welcome to speak from the pulpit. But someone who does not identity as a Zionist? No. That is where pluralism ends. In another case, a Conservative synagogue in New England, I was told the rabbi, who was a rabbinical student when I taught at JTS (I don’t recall if he was ever took one of my classes), said that, “Shaul is not permitted to speak at this synagogue.” The reason was apparently something I had written in 2020. I have no problem with either case, and yet I do think they illustrate something worthy of our attention.

The third example is the recent episode regarding President Isaac Herzog’s invitation to deliver the commencement address at the 2026 JTS ordination. I refer to it jokingly as “Herzog-gate.” After the invitation was announced, a group of JTS students, graduating and non-graduating, wrote a letter to the chancellor to voice their protest against inviting Herzog, who said some very unsavory things about Gaza and Gazans early in the war and was subsequently accused of “inciting genocide” by the ICJ. One can disagree with that accusation, but it is real. The student’s letter, which was not intended for public dissemination, was leaked by an outsider who saw it (a dissenting letter was also written) and was picked up by Jewish Currents other news agencies, and then social media. The event itself was less interesting to me than the social media uproar, consisting of everything from disallowing those newly minted rabbis who signed the letter from getting pulpits to expelling those who are not graduating etc. (Let it also be said that another other recipient of an honorary doctorate is actress Debra Messing who has said some pretty horrible things about Muslims including calling New York mayor Zohran Mamdani a “jihadist.” That JTS decided to grant her an honorary doctorate is another matter).

The vitriol against the students who wrote a private letter to their chancellor about Herzog I think is illustrative of the demise of pluralism in American Jewry today. One can disagree with these students - pluralism operates inside disagreement - but somehow claiming their act of protest disqualifies them from the pulpit or being matriculated students at JTS? I suppose that fits into the message I received from a prestigious Conservative synagogue that “no one who is not a Zionist is permitted to speak from the pulpit.” Zionism, which is the support of a country that many of these people – agree with them or not – think committed genocide in Gaza, has become the litmus test for Jewish leadership? Jewish leadership? Have we reached the very territorial borders of pluralism? And if so, what does that mean?

Between Metaphysics and History: Has Zionism become Metaphysical?

Reuven Kimelman, in an essay “Judaism and Pluralism” (Modern Judaism 7.2 1987) makes a distinction between what he calls “The Way of Metaphysics” and “The Way of History.” He writes, “The metaphysical approach underscores the essential unity of the past. All significant diversity is swept under the rug of a harmonistic exegesis of the historical record The result is that the past speaks to the present in a monotone…The historical approach revels in the diversity of the past. It underscores variety over continuity. Relishing every difference, it skips the constant. Finding little that is normative in the past, it provides little guidance for the present.” Each position has its hazards. “Exclusive emphasis on the metaphysical approach can lead to rejecting Jewish pluralism as inauthentic. Exclusive emphasis on the historical approach can result in rejecting any truth claim.” (142).

Part of the severing of Jews from Judaism as emblematic of modernity, which includes historicism, is that the Metaphysical Way has largely given way to The Historical Way. Claims of absolute truth that demanded fidelity to qualify for membership in the people has been undermined by the relativism of historicism that enables Jews to function in a pluralistic modality. Yes, that modality has the hazard of “absolute relativism” one may claim resides in postmodernity, but in general Jews have been able to navigate those waters successfully.

The Metaphysical Way has been sidelined such that it no longer functions as a ticket of entry it once did. Diversity functions as a unity under the tacit umbrella of “peoplehood” which is a signpost for Zionism. Today, opposition to Zionism has become, as one scholar put it, “anachronistic.” David Ben Gurion said something similar in an essay “Zionism, People, and State.” (Me-Golah le-Geulah, Moshe Steiner ed. Tel Aviv 1957, 371). “The fear, anxiety and possible failure of [of Zionism] was not only true of anti-or non-Zionists but also die-hard Zionists…However, the moment the state came into existence all of the doubts, fears, and anxieties disappeared…and the state became the centerpiece and unifying factor of the life of the Jewish people in our time.” This was likely true when it as written in the 1950s, and perhaps even into the 21st century. But not today.

To return to Kimelman’s distinction, what I see happening is a kind of reversal. The Historical Way of the state Israel (Israel is a historical phenomenon) is becoming The Metaphysical Way. That is, fidelity to Israel is losing its relativistic quality and becoming an absolute precept of Judaism. Its becoming a kind of dogma, whereby a rabbi can be prohibited from speaking in a synagogue, or a student prevented from becoming a rabbi – that is, disavowing Zionism is a kind of heresy. Maybe it has been so for a long time, but it is getting tested now in new ways in part because the center of the pluralistic orbit, Zionism, is being challenged after Gaza. This will get worse because many of the young Jews disaffiliating with Zionism are quite Jewishly educated and capable and they have no reason to return. The heretic returns only when they disavow their heresy, but many of these Jews do not think there are guilty of heresy at all. In addition, if as Arielle Angel proposed in Jewish Currents (here), new institutions are built, over time, this new group will attain considerable power and influence without the need to return. For many, the institutional Judaism that is rejecting them is in their rear-view mirrors. They have moved on.

This shift is slow but accelerating. As Israel’s reputation continues to take a hit among Americans - whatever you think about that - the past hegemons of the center will draw sharper lines and increase the polemical rhetoric because, in some way, they don’t have another alternative, and Israel certainly is not making it easy for them. The increased volume, the threats and the rhetoric, are not signs of strength, but of weakness. Whether another center emerges, and pluralism can again become fully operational (I hope it can), no one knows. But right now, we are watching it collapse before our eyes.

[with thanks to Carla Sulzbach]

Shaul