The Ashkenazi Revolution

220style of their speech and writing, over the last few years, great changeshave taken place. These years have brought great changes in the lives ofthe Confederacy of Jewish Peoples, and in the lives of its two maincomponents, the Ashkenazi nation and the group of Sephardo-Mizrahinations, and at the same time as these changes took place, there was also achange in the strategy and tactics of the Sephardic leaders. The Sephardicleaders never believed in a single and unified Jewish People, butnecessarily in a confederacy of separate and feuding Jewish peoples, and inthis they were right. Within this confederacy of peoples, Sepharadconsidered itself the heir to the Tribe of Judah from the days of the FirstTemple, which continues to enjoy superiority over the other tribes. InAshkenaz, the Sephardic leaders saw a tribe that was condemned to aneternity of subservience in relation to the Sephardim; a tribe that must berestrained, at any cost, from breaking out of Eastern Europe and spreadingover the territories that Sepharad considered its own.Jewish history, as is known, thought otherwise and in the 18 th century adecisive change took place whose result was the total collapse of Sephardicstatus and, on the other hand, the great rise of Ashkenaz. All indicationsshowed that Ashkenaz is the modern Judah, and that the Sephardo-Mizrahipeoples are, for the most part, withered limbs whose future is doubtful. Inthese circumstances, an awful fear gripped the hearts of the Sephardicleaders that Ashkenaz will repay Sepharad for the crimes and abuse that itinflicted upon Ashkenaz over the centuries. It is difficult to know to whatextent Moses Montefiore was motivated by an interest, and concern, for thegeneral Jewish People, and to what extent he was motivated by specificSephardic concerns. But there is no doubt that some of his motivation wasbased on the latter, and the evidence of this is the large cash prize that heoffered all mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardi couples that committed to marriagein the Land of Israel. Moses Montefiore wished to return Sepharad to theforefront of general Jewish life, to harness Sephardic arrogance, to preventSepharad from deteriorating to the level of the Samaritans. The tactic ofthe Sephardic leaders, until the first years of the State, has been the same asthat that the great, and illustrious, Sephardic activist had taken. Of course,the Sephardic leaders of later times lacked both the personal stature of