The Ashkenazi Revolution

71threw its lot not with the nurturing of close relationships with foreignpeoples but with the forging of inner, and independent, strength in order toendure persecution and catastrophe. Ashkenaz did not know the coddlingthat was the lot of Sepharad, but this was a blessing for it. Israel Zangwillcorrectly pointed out, in one of his essays that were collected in thepamphlet “The Voice of Jerusalem”, that what took place in Spain was firstand foremost a cultural renaissance, glowing and brilliant, but what tookplace in Germany was a strong and well-defined nationalism. The differentvalues of the Ashkenazic civilization that formed in the vicinity of theRhine in the 10 th and 11 th centuries, proved themselves to be powerfulfoundations of a stubborn and very energetic civilization. It is likely thatRashi was not quite as brilliant as Maimonedes, but his commentaries,written simply, and easily understood, brought an understanding of theTorah to the wider masses and were a great unifying force. At the sametime that the Spanish “Great Eagle” directed his words at the educated elite,the sharp rationality of his teachings planted, in the Sephardic people, theseeds of conflict. The decrees of Rabenu Gershom, the Light of theDiaspora, in matters of marriage, laid the foundations of the Ashkenazifamily, whose strength is much greater than that of the Sephardic family.From the perspective of his historical influence, Rabenu Gershom is theequal of hundreds of famous Sephardic philosophers and poets.The mighty, popular and massive civilization of Ashkenaz has proven itssuperiority time and again over the one-dimensional civilization ofSepharad. The Spanish Inquisition was a minor blow compared to thecatastrophes that repeatedly visited Ashkenaz. The Jews of Spain wereexpelled, but the Jews of Ukraine were murdered in the pogroms of 1648and 1649. But despite this, Ashkenaz always recovered and establishednew strongholds, in Poland, in Germany, in the United States and recentlyin Israel. In contrast, the civilization of Sepharad never recovered from theblow it received from the Spanish Inquisition. It founded centers in Safed,Thessaloniki, England and Holland. But these were but shadows of ashadow of the Spanish center. The claim that the geographical situation ofGermany was better than that of Spain has no basis. On the contrary: Thesituation of Spain was infinitely better than that of Germany. It was located