The Ashkenazi Revolution

195severed, and I am certain that it is because of this political reason. Myconclusion, in this chain of events, is that there never truly was a deepcloseness between us, but our ties were only for the sake of our war withcommon enemies and shared opposition: The English, the Arabs and thepeople of Mapai. When the conjunctural circumstances of war had passed,our friendship was shattered into pieces, as if it never existed, and this factproved that the relationship was of the same nature as that of the friendshipbetween the Jewish tribes in the days of the Judges, which worked togetheragainst a foreign tribe and persecuted it, and as soon as they had prevailed,their friendship turned into enmity and their hatred returned to its previousstate.This foundation of force and artificiality accompanied the Ashkenazi-Sephardi relationship, in the Land of Israel, almost from the first time theAshkenazi community began, more or less, to be recognized. The threadsthat linked the disciples of the Vilna Gaon, who migrated to the Land ofIsrael in the year 1809, and the Sephardim, were severed and, over thecourse of about two generations, until the arrival of Eliezer Ben-Yehudaand his friends, the relationship between these two bodies was like therelationship between two peoples who happened to share the same religion.As long as this separateness, which had been achieved in large part thanksto the efforts of Rabbi Yisroel of Shklov, showed all the signs of a naturalhistoric phenomenon, the bridge that Ben Yehuda, and his friends, builtbore all the signs of artificiality and weakness. Rabbi Yisroel of Shklovexpressed the developed desire of an entire community, but Ben Yehudaexpressed the deviant desire of a group of intellectuals. The foundation offorce, within the Ashkenazi-Sephardi relationship in the Land of Israel,reached its apex in the years after the establishment of the state, when Ben-Gurion opened the floodgates of the Land of Israel to the Sephardo-Mizrahipeoples and accelerated the process that is now reducing the Ashkenazim toa minority.This policy of Ben-Gurion aroused many regrets, and even opposition,trembling and fear among many Ashkenazim. Had Ben-Gurion presentedthis policy for approval via a referendum before the Jews of the State of