The Ashkenazi Revolution

67rebelled several times against Roman rule and was active in the transitionsand revolutions that occurred in Mesopotamia. All of the traits anddiscoveries, that indicate a normal minority nation that enjoys a largedegree of autonomy, were present in the Jewish community in Babylon. Itis no wonder that the Jewish nation in Babylon struggled for itsindependence even against the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel,sought to cast from its shoulders the latter’s guardianship in matters ofJewish law, and sought to inherit its place as the supreme Jewish authority.Dubnov saw the Jewish settlement in Babylon as a center because he saw,before his eyes, first and foremost the glorious yeshivas that becamecenters of religious authority within the Jewish People. However theseyeshivas were merely cultural accomplishments of a tribe-people, of ahistorical entity that was formed in the era of the destruction of the FirstTemple and developed a complete national life that included religious,economic, political and social activities. This life was the life of anindependent Jewish People that sought to increase its strength as much aspossible, and to widen its influence within the general Jewish confederacy,even at the cost of dispossessing and of bringing about the decline of theJewish settlement in the Land of Israel. There are many parallels with theascent of the United States within the international confederacy of theAnglo-Saxons, as it intentionally replaced the motherland, England, andwith the ascent of the Jewish settlement in Babylon as it usurped theauthority and status from the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel.3Dubnov’s lack of understanding, with regard to the definition of centers,becomes more obvious with the status of the two great Jewish peoples thatlived in Europe, the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim. Between the Jews ofBabylon and the Jews of the Land of Israel there was a strong and farreachingkinship. There is also no doubt that there was coordination andcooperation in the rebellions against Rome, in the beginning of the secondcentury, which took place both in the Land of Israel and in the land of theEuphrates. But these parallels are completely absent in the reciprocalrelationship between the Jewish community in Spain and the Jewish