The Ashkenazi Revolution

188audacity, but rather first and foremost the folly, superficiality and deceptiveways of the Ashkenazim with whom he came into contact. TheseAshkenazim should have revealed to Abaas the fact of historical inferiorityof the Sephardo-Mizrahi peoples compared to Ashkenaz. But, instead oftelling him this truth and emphasizing the long period of healing thesepeoples require, the Ashkanazim flattered Abaas with unrealistic scenariosof optimism that promised salvation within half a generation. It appearsthat Abaas had doubts about this optimism and, because of the pain, hereached a conclusion that avoids reality and presents absurd demands. Inthe above-mentioned article by Abaas, written in the year 1954, we canalready recognize the imperative, and threatening, undertone, which is sotypical of the propaganda of the leaders, and seducers, of Sepharad in ourtimes. Abaas says: “In order to prevent this grave process, it is essential tohave a planned national policy”. What Abbas means is an elimination ofthe gap. Abbas then continues and says: “If we do not do this soon, thefoundations of equality will collapse, and there will be dissatisfaction, andwho knows what situation we shall arrive at…”These points are threatening points. That is to say, if we do not fulfill all ofthe demands that were laid out by Abbas, then woe unto us and we areresponsible for our own ill fate!Abbas was a working class man from the Sephardo-Mizrahi peoples, andhis religion greatly strengthened his ties to the masses, on whose behalf hespoke. He never severed his ties with them, and he always dwelt amongthem. In this he was an exception within the congregation of Sephardicleaders, of whom the vast majority fled from their people and left them tothemselves. The man died before his time, and it is very likely that had helived longer, he would have been among the founders of an “ethnic”, that isto say, a nationalist, Sephardo-Mizrahi movement, which was of the sametype as the “Achva” movement, a movement that does not set itself apartfrom the latter in its appeal except, perhaps, in that its leader, AvrahamAbaas, would have risen above all the Sephardo-Mizrahi nationalists whopreceded him.