The Ashkenazi Revolution

84factor did not appear and change the situation. However, from the time ofthe French Revolution, the Jews violated this obligation. They exited, ormore accurately, were removed, in their masses, from the ghettos. Theyinvolved themselves in the lives of non-Jewish peoples and began toinfluence, in far-reaching ways, their lives. The Jews fomentedrevolutions, brought about the fall and strengthening, of regimes, elevated,and brought down, castes and classes. They became a decisive factor in thestruggle for space and, in so doing, they created mortal foes among theircompetitors, without having a country from which they could defendthemselves behind its walls. The anomaly of the existence of Jews in thetwentieth century was illustrated in that this existence deviated from theframework of the ghetto without forming for itself the framework of acountry. We must not forget that the supporting pillars of the possibility ofJewish existence in our generation were laid by the two Jewish forces ofthe Jewish-Roman struggle of 1800 years ago: The rebels and YohananBen-Zakai. The rebels sought to ensure a normal existence and a normalrule over space at any cost. Yohanan Ben-Zakai’s version was the ghettolife of a nation that sought to acquire eternal life through living amongforeign nations until the arrival of the messiah. He who rejects theunderstanding of Yohanan Ben-Zakai is forced to accept the understandingof those who rebelled against Rome and he must be assured of a normalacquisition of space, in accordance with the normal rules by which suchacquisition is accomplished. An intermediate path, between these twounderstandings, does not exist, and he who imagines that he has found sucha path is headed toward catastrophe.4The question, which was posed as the Jewish Question was, in fact, theAshkenazi Question. The numeric increase of the Ashkenazi People, andits great impact upon the lot of majority peoples, created friction betweenthe two. In contrast, the friction between the Sephardo-Mizrahi peoplesand their neighbors had been decreasing. Scientific research will highlightthe fact that, over the last few centuries, these peoples were subject tocontinuous symptoms of decline, which obscured Jewish supremacy and, in