The Ashkenazi Revolution

tribes were at Judah for its destruction of Benjamin and the dynasticmurders committed by David and his men. He strove to appear, in the eyesof the people, more as a judge than as a king, he avoided external wars, andhe had Adoniyah Ben Hagith executed only after he had taunted the king inthe most brazen way. More than anything else: Solomon built the Templeand, with this project, he aroused a religious revival among the people thatmade them forget the horror of the dynastic murders and that gave areligious justification to the primacy and rule of Judah. But, at the end ofhis reign, the religious zeal of Solomon faded. By surrounding himselfwith a harem of foreign women, and by prostrating himself to the gods ofneighboring nations, Solomon turned his monarchy into a regularMideastern one that persecutes its people and seeks, above all, its ownadvancement and pleasure. This development weakened the already feeblecords of unity and awakened Jeroboam Ben Nabat to take the step of“raising his hand against the king” and he fled to Shishak, the king ofEgypt, in order to wait, in the Land of the River, for a good time to reignover Israel. This step, taken by Jeroboam Ben Nabat was natural andentirely legitimate, and it is no wonder he got a push and encouragementfrom the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite. When he was a high official in thecentral ministry of Solomon, Jeroboam Ben Nabat, a man of Ephraim, sawthat this ministry had ceased serving worthy causes toward the end ofSolomon’s life. Instead, it became a tyrannical tool to maintain the rule ofa king who was immersed in the pleasures of his harem. Jeroboam BenNabat saw great injustice in that the historical liberty of the tribes of Israelhad been taken without military justification, as it was in the era of the warsbetween David and the Philistines, and without religious justification, as inthe days when Solomon erected the Temple and was faithful to the Lord.The zealous personality of Jeroboam Ben Nabat was typical of thetraditional Israelite spirit more so than Solomon’s personality at the end ofhis days, when he was a harem man who served foreign gods, anddeceptively maintained the Temple to use it as a means of ensuring theobedience of the tribes of Israel. Jeroboam Ben Nabat was a true freedomfighter who reminds us of personalities such as Roger Casement, theIrishman who earned a high position among British diplomats and, aftersome troubles, rebelled against the British. During the First World War he46