The Ashkenazi Revolution

23apart by conquering time. However the uniqueness of the Romans is howthey set themselves apart by conquering space. In every facet that has arelationship to the conquest of territory, the Romans revealed an unusualability. They were excellent farmers, superior pavers of roads, experts inthe transport of water, the finest administrators and soldiers in their class,well versed in the making of treaties and maintaining good relations withsubjugated peoples and vassals. The Romans committed themselves tospace and, in the end, they conquered the whole “world” of their time, thatis to say, the areas around the Mediterranean Sea. But this conquest costthem dearly. The wars devastated the Roman population through attrition,and the Punic Wars caused the Roman population a draining of blood fromwhich they were never able to recover. From this point onward, Italybecame more and more full of foreign peoples, a majority of them slaves.In the golden age of Rome, at the time of Julius Caesar, Augustus andCicero, there already was a lack of various classes within Romanpopulation. In their stead was a collection of foreigners. From the days ofEmperor Trianus (98-117) the leadership of Rome, to a large degree, hadbeen transferred to foreign-born emperors. The era of Rome lasted about1100 years from its foundation as a city, which occurred, according torecent excavations, in the seventh century B.C. until the year 476. Afterthat, the Roman people ceased to exist. The Romans conquered space butlost time, that is to say – themselves. The Jews lost space but kept theirtime – and themselves.9The territorialists in our times, from the likes of Dr. Yisrael Scheib, seethemselves as scholars of the past and seek to grasp symbols and fantasiesfrom the times of the First Temple. But in truth, territorialism, to the extentthat it exists in the nation and in Zionism, cannot be traced to this past, butfrom the fruits of the territorialist theories of (Leon) Pinsker, Herzl andtheir followers. The historical progression of the era of the First andSecond Temples, should cause those who dream of expanding our space tolose hope. It is a fact that Zionists who are aware of the sources haverevealed a minimalist view on territory. It is specifically those who are far