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In her novel of 1876, Daniel Deronda, George Eliot fa-mously foresaw the re-establishment of a Jewish state, and in the history of Zionism, the book is far more than a literary curiosity. To get a sense of how far-reaching the novel’s influence would be, one need only consider the case of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the driving force behind the revival of Hebrew as a modern language. The Russian-born Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) first envisioned his life’s work during the revival of Russian nationalism that came with the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. But it was a reading of Daniel Deronda in translation shortly afterward that spurred him into action—which meant his leaving Russia for Paris to study medicine as a preparation for life in Palestine. History can move quickly. A few of the book’s original readers may have still been alive in 1948, when Israel proclaimed its independence. George Eliot’s memory is duly honored in the Jewish homeland. But Daniel Deronda itself—or rather, those parts of Daniel Deronda about its Jewish characters and their beliefs—is rather less honored by literary critics and scholars. The very parts of the book that led to its significant place in modern Jewish history are also responsible for its problematic reputation as a work of literature.

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