The Ashkenazi Revolution

74Over the 500 years between the first expulsion from France, in the year1306, and the new era, contact between the Jews of Spain and the Jews ofGermany was very limited, and therefore there was no theater within whichthe Sephardic urge for competitiveness could express itself. In itswanderings, after the Spanish expulsion, Sephardic Jewry was almostexclusively in contact with lowly Mizrahi Jews and upon these was decreedthat they suffer from its haughtiness. However, in the second half of the17 th century contact increased between the Sephardim, who lived in thecoastal cities of Holland, Germany and France and the Ashkenazim. Thelatter began their westward wanderings, which brought about the formationof large Ashkenazi communities in England and the American continent,and in the process, they encountered Sephardim who had preceded them.The wealthy and pedigreed Sephardim looked down upon, and hated, thepoor Ashkenazim, but this relationship was not unusual for therelationships that prevailed among Jewish peoples. Much more dangerouswas the tendency, of the Sephardic leaders, to express their disdain inpamphlets and proclamations that were directed toward the Christian world.One of the first of these slanderers was the Sephardic leader Isaac BenPinto, from Amsterdam, who responded to Voltaire regarding the words ofdefamation that the latter published in one of his articles. I shall quoteDubnov:The wealthy and scholarly man of Amsterdam, Isaac de Pinto, head of thepedigreed Sephardim, went about defending his people and brought outseveral new arguments. In his polemic book, “Critical Thoughts” (France,1762), he claims that one should distinguish between Jews: “The Jewswho are spread about among the various nations adapt themselves, little bylittle to the traits of the inhabitants of the land. The Jew of London doesnot resemble the Jew of Constantinople, just as this Jew does not resemblea Mandarin in China. The Sephardic Jew in Bordeaux, and the GermanJew in Metz, are completely different creatures. The Jew, in each land,dresses himself to the form of the local inhabitants, and he is faithful toeach ruler, who gives him protection and refuge. But Voltaire judges allJews as one entity and formed an image that is nothing more than animaginary monstrosity.” “Let Voltaire pay attention” – adds the author –