The Ashkenazi Revolution

95the rabbinical stone from which they were hewn and turned their backs onit. They were not the only ones to do so. Many Enlightenment Jewsfollowed this path, replaced the yeshiva bench for the university bench andbecame celebrated scientists and noteworthy revolutionaries. Most of thesebecame completely secular, completely forsook the rabbinical world to itsown devices and never dealt with it again, for better or for worse. Not sothe men of the New Hebrew Literature, who waged a war of destructionagainst the rabbinical world, as if it were a war of revenge like that of theYevsk. This development very much corrupted the ability of the NewHebrew Literature to see the political situation of the Ashkenazi People inan objective way. When we compare one against the other, “TheAutoemancipation” of Pinsker and the political writings of the NewHebrew Literature, it is as if we are comparing the composition of a giantagainst the gyrations of midgets.2The fact that the opinions of the group of Enlightenment authors were notever meant to express objective national truth, but rather were a tacticaltool that served the interests of the sect of Hebrew authors themselves, wasrevealed when these authors were asked to define their stance toward theLovers of Zion movement. Yehuda Leib Gordon was the greatest of theEnlightenment poets and it seemed as if, considering his expressive poemsthat strike at life in the Diaspora, he would be the first to lend his hand tothe Lovers of Zion and their activities in the Land of Israel. But whathappened was the opposite of this. Yehuda Leib Gordon stood against theLovers of Zion movement and put obstacles in their way. He expressed hisstance, in one of his letters, with these words:A nation whose religion is the main thing, and life is secondary; a nationwhose land is full of laws and rules like an abyss that has no water but isfull of fish – such a nation cannot succeed in creating a state. The conceptof the Lovers of Zion was pleasant to me like a playful child, as long as itremained only an abstract concept, a vision of the heart. But when I sawthat skin and flesh dresses itself with it and that bones and sinew covers