The Ashkenazi Revolution

176the campaign of gathering the exiles, the Ashkenazi Jew proved hissuperiority over the Mizrahi and won his most shining victory in the battleof relations between the Jewish peoples. But, at the same time, this victorybequeathed, to the Ashkenazi Jew, a frightful defeat that relegated theAshkenazi People in the State of Israel to minority status, and to thecreation of a possibility that the vanquished of yesterday will be the victorsof some distant tomorrow. The problematic nature of the gathering ofexiles does not allow us to devote just one approach to it. Of two MizrahiJews, who know all the facts and are both at the same intellectual andmoral level, one of them will view the gathering first and foremost as arescue campaign, but his fellow will view it, first and foremost, as acampaign of degradation. Of two Ashkenazim, one will view the gatheringof exiles, first and foremost, as a victory, while the other – first andforemost as a defeat. Moreover: The great contradictory nature of thisconcept is likely to cause even the same man to view it each moment froma different perspective. The contradictory, and neurotic, nature of theconcept of the gathering of exiles, is likely to turn it into a flash point forpassion, hate and dangerous conflict.The economic situation of the Mizrahi Jew, in the State of Israel, is quicklyimproving, but his ethical and societal status is depressed. Nine fingers ofthe two Ashkenazi hands help him and aid him from every side, but theAshkenazi’s tenth finger simultaneously moves and imprints, upon theforehead of the Mizrahi, his inferiority. The failure of the Mizrahi is notonly in his retardation regarding time, but also in something even worsethan this. This concept of settling the Land of Israel should have been thenatural endeavor of Mideastern Jewry. In the Land of Israel under Turkishrule there were good opportunities for infiltration and possession, from thetime the Turks first conquered the land until the Modern Era. MideasternJewry had great prospects here, but they were not taken advantage of. Jewsfrom distant Russian regions contributed to the building of the Land ofIsrael more than the Jews of Baghdad. The Jews of Algeria, in which theFrench developed bountiful sub-tropical agriculture, have no part in theHebrew agriculture of the Land of Israel. The fact that Ashkenazi Jews,who anticipated, in the Land of Israel, all the difficulties of acclimation to a