The Ashkenazi Revolution

141legion of the British army was Moshe Sharett. Except for this, the routineincluded settlement, demands from the British government, and speeches inthe Diaspora, which would have been executed quite well even had Ben-Gurion preferred to sleep during that 27 year period in order to save hisenergy for the great activities which he began in the year 1947. Would“sleep”, such as this, be conceivable in the biography of Trotsky? Notunder any circumstances. Here we have one of the great tragedies of theLabor movement. The biography of Trotsky will occupy people until thelast generation. However, no diligent biographer can change the life storyof Ben-Gurion in a convincing way. For there are too manymanifestations, during his life, of a refusal to turn away from the Hall ofFame and to go forth toward the wild lands that true historical figures turninto successful areas. Agents of great empires did not conspire toassassinate Ben-Gurion, as Stalin’s messengers plotted against Trotsy, andthe British government against Stern. The tragedy of Ben-Gurion is thathis biography lacks any thread that separates him entirely from thebiography of a typical person among those of great proportion. The typicalIsraeli sees, in Ben-Gurion, an ideal. In his eyes, Ben-Gurion isrepresentative of the successful man, who does everything on time andalways finds the appropriate time and moment… the man who knows whento refrain from identifying himself too much with a political idea and whento identify with it completely… there is a lack, in the personality of Ben-Gurion, of a somber and convincing drama such as we find in the lives ofHerzl, Stern and Trotsky - this is the fundamental element that causes theman on the street to refuse to identify with him ever, but is willing toapproach him only as one who is viewing a movie in a theater.The ideological and motivational weakness of the Labor movement stems,to a large and decisive degree, from the way it relates to time. Thefounders of the movement were all products of the “cheder” while some ofthem were also products of the yeshiva and, as they sat on their benchesstudying, they absorbed the specific longing to conquer distant, and eternal,time that is characteristic of Judaism. From the time they abandoned theJewish religion, a revolution took place within them that caused them toreplace the distant and abstract goals of Judaism with tangible and