The Ashkenazi Revolution

61Peninsula. They had reason to destroy the Jews as well, the dwellers of theLand of Israel, and to replace them with a multitude of Levantine peoples.The Romans carried out part of this plan but did not take it to itsconclusion.The order that the Roman Empire put in place existed for two thousandyears. It exists to this day. Forms of government, methods of rule andRoman law form an indivisible part of European Civilization. The empiresand kingdoms that were formed after the dissolution of the Roman Empirewere all smaller than it, and all of them copied its ways. The framework ofthe relationship between Rome and Judah, which was formed during thewar of destruction, was turned into a fixed template for civilizations thatcame after Rome, especially the peoples of Europe. In these civilizationsthe Jews knew destruction, persecution and forced conversion, but theywere never uprooted and never extinguished entirely. Furthermore.Alongside the periods of persecution, the Jews also knew, over the courseof exile, periods of great influence, wealth and honor. The Roman worldsaw the Jews as in integral part of its existence and therefore there was nosuccess, until the twentieth century, for any trend or movement to seek tocompletely uproot the Jews and to erase them from under the heavens.7There is almost no doubt that Yohanan Ben-Zakai was involved innegotiations with the Roman authorities during the war of destruction (66-70). He saw the fate of the nation of the Second Temple as being sealedand sought to guarantee Jewish continuity through strengthening its hold onthe dimension of time. Yohanan Ben-Zakai formed the foundations ofJewish life in the Diaspora – which exist to this today – by liberating themfrom their attachment to space. This liberation was accomplished both byrefusing to participate in the Jewish rebellion, which was an armed struggleover the land, and also by liberating the religion from being attached to theTemple, which was replaced by the synagogue. The Judaism of YohananBen-Zakai is not the Judaism of the Temple, which exists exlusively withinspace, and is dependant upon ownership of the land, but a Judaism that