In the wake the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and subsequent pro-Palestinian protests around the U.S., many Jewish Americans have been grappling with their own identities in relationship to Israel.

In a packed talk at Harvard Law School, Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, and Derek J. Penslar, William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, marked the anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre by detailing the historically close ties between American Jewry and the state of Israel today. In separate remarks, each underscored why the majority of Jews in the U.S. have felt profoundly betrayed over the past year.

Penslar, author of “Zionism: An Emotional State” (2023), also co-chairs the University’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias. He began by outlining the historic processes that helped Jews integrate into American society and achieve a sense of political empowerment.

During the 19th century, Jews residing in North America and western Europe experienced increased economic mobility and social integration. Soon they were openly appealing for political interventions on behalf of persecuted Jews in North Africa and the Russian Empire.

During the 20th century, optimism took root among those living in the U.S. “Jews came to feel themselves to be not unusual or exceptional, but rather exemplary citizens of the republic,” said Penslar, who is also director of the Center for Jewish Studies. “And by that argument, antisemitism was not just bad for the Jews. It was bad for everybody. It was un-American.”

Among American Jews, the movement to create a Jewish state became widely popular during World War II as the Nazis murdered two thirds of the Jews in Europe. But American proponents departed from the tenets of Zionism’s central and eastern European founders, who stressed the importance for Jews to prepare for new lives in historic Palestine.