The Ashkenazi Revolution

270Somebody, from among the upper echelon, made a shocking account ofthis movement, which promised to save others but left them in their miseryand saved only itself. The Law of Return, which opened the gates of theLand of Israel before every Jew, came to atone for a crime and to obscure asin. This law is, to a large extent, the fruit of the spirit and will of Ben-Gurion, the greatest leader of the Labor movement. Ben-Gurion’s path,during his last twenty years, epitomizes both himself and his movement. Inthe years preceding the world war, and during the Holocaust itself, Ben-Gurion took no action outside his regular routine. Had he fallen asleepwhen Hitler took power, and woke up at the end of the year 1947, historywould not have changed its course one iota. In our knowledge of the greatpower of Ben-Gurion, which came to light in the era of the state, hisactions in the previous era seem several times more ridiculous to us, hisrivalries, his travels, the comical episode of the Biltmore conference, andhis arguments with Zionist leaders like Yitzhak Gruenbaum and AbbaHillel Silver, who don’t even reach his ankles. Just as Ben-Gurion revealedhis great power in the era of the State, so too did he reveal his terrible faultand defect during the era of the Holocaust: His subservience to the Hall ofFame of Mapai and the Zionist Agency, and his refusal to give up his placein this hall, and too commence a revolutionary struggle. It is a fact thatBen-Gurion began his murderous war against the Zionist Agency after hisactions, during the era of the State, established his place in the Hall ofFame within the Jewish community to such an extent that it is no longerimpossible to remove him from it. Before this, the smoke from theargument between him and the leaders of the Zionist Agency was moreintense than the fiery flames that lurked behind this smoke. These were thepsychological and historical circumstances that gave birth to the Law ofReturn. The masses of immigrants that flowed from Mideastern landsserved to hide the crime of the sacrifice of the Jews of Europe. The entryof flawed and defective people, without even a minimum of selection,served to emphasize the great mercy that covered up, and atoned for, theprevious cruelty.Only the extraordinary human blossoming of the old Ashkenazi settlementwas able to balance the demographic weakness that resulted from this great