The Ashkenazi Revolution

150since it left the Jewish Question, in Europe, like an open wound that keepsexpanding. The abandonment of the British proposal contributed greatly tothe triumph of Hitlerism and to the destruction of European Jewry.Moreover: The outline of post-Herzl Zionism stood almost entirely –Avraham Stern was, in this respect, an exception – greatly partial to theSephardo-Mizrahi peoples and in opposition to Ashkenaz. The Hebrewlanguage, the creation of a majority of high-investment Hebrewsettlements, was a tool to bring together the Sephardo-Mizrahi peoples and,at the same time, to disrupt the threads of solidarity between the settlementand the Ashkenazi masses in Eastern Europe. The language, the literatureand the historic approach of post-Herzl Zionism were all in line with apreference for Sepharad and in opposition to Ashkenaz. Between the twowars, the disciples of Hebrew Literature saw the migration of YiddishspeakingJews as its enemy and the migration of Mizrahi Jews, stammerersof Hebrew, as a friendly migration. The result of this huge preference, inthe field of culture, necessarily has political consequences. The Ashkenazisettlement in the Land of Israel reaped what it sowed, or more accurately:That which was sown for it by the New Hebrew Literature.Chapter 9The Tyrannical Reign of the Literary Mandarins1The accepted wisdom, which sees the Labor movement as the primarypolitical agent in the State of Israel, is not correct. This agent is the NewHebrew Literature, which determined its development more than any othernon-Revisionist agent. This literature created values that were morepowerful than those of the Labor movement. It created cultural assets thatwould survive continuously for 200 years. It created a distorted image ofJewish nationality that depended upon the cultural wealth of the rabbinicalworld. It created Modern Hebrew and changed cultural hegemony from anAshkenazi cultural asset to a Sephardi asset. It created the publicist tools