October 7, 2023, was a watershed event in contemporary Jewish history. What took place on that date challenged the two most basic assumptions of post-Holocaust Jewish life: that the future security of the Jewish people would be assured by an independent Jewish state backed by an army, and that the freedom for Jews in the Diaspora to live as Jews would be secured by democratic rights and liberties. The pogroms of October 7 and the worldwide explosion of antisemitism that followed—even preceding Israel taking military action against Hamas—challenged both assumptions. The Israel Defense Forces could not prevent a slaughter from occurring even in the independent State of Israel, and throughout the world democracies seem less secure than at any time in the post-World War II era.
The editors have turned to leading Jewish thinkers in the United States, Israel, and Europe to grapple with the implications of October 7 with respect to the Jewish future, the State of Israel, the relationship of Jews with Israel, and the character of Israel's relationships in the world. A Shattered World is one of the first scholarly collections of essays to address the hard question of what the nature of the Jewish future should be.