The Ashkenazi Revolution

193the Foundation”, in the issue that was published on 10/25/1962. In thisarticle, the author composes a long list of dark accusations, which appear,in Ashkenazi eyes, to be ridiculous and invented out of thin air. Amongthem appears the accusation against Moshe Smilansky, the author andactivist of Rehovoth, that he failed to include, in his stories, Yemenitecharacters, people of Sha’arayim, who had worked his vineyards andorchards. This claim, taken by itself, is absurd. An author is allowed tochoose whatever characters he sees fit, and he is not obligated to answer toanybody’s audit concerning his choice of heroes, but, from a political andpsychological perspective, this fact, which so infuriated Tabib, is verymeaningful. That Smilansky avoided Yemenite characters proves that theirexistence, in the landscape of Rehovoth, was considered unfavorable, andthat he did not like them, that he perhaps even feared them. MosheSmilansky strived toward an Ashkenazi-Arabic culture, in which theAshkenazi Jew appears in the Arabic landscape as a planter, a researcher,an author, and over time, even as a politician. This attempt lacked anypolitical grasp, but on a purely cultural plane, he had already won greatsuccesses, one of which was the literary creation of Moshe Smilansky. Thedual Ashkenazi-Arabic existence, in the many old settlements, was muchmore idealistic than the dual existence of Rehovoth and Sha’arayim.The conclusion is shocking. We have expelled the Arabs and importedMizrahi Jews. But at the same time we were creating the culturalfoundation, the harmonic dual existence between the Arabs and us had notbeen nullified, and we had not created a parallel asset that was capable ofbridging the gap between the Sephardo-Mizrahi Jews and us. The tiesbetween these Jews and us are bureaucratic, institutional and securityorientedin nature. That is to say, it depends mainly on cooperation forsecurity, which is essentially conjunctural in nature, even if it continues forcenturies. The farmers of Rehovoth, during British rule, and the nearbysurrounding Arabs, were at odds from a security standpoint, but despitethis, they shared an intimacy that was, perhaps, more natural than that thatexists between the inhabitants of Rehovoth and the inhabitants ofSha’arayim today, despite their cooperation in matters of security. DuringTurkish, and British rule, many strong personal bonds formed between the