Though among such Christians (and Jews) this aim was known as ‘Restorationism’, in keeping with Herzl’s own usage (and Max Nordau’s remark from 1905 – ‘Zionism is a new word for a very old thing’), I typically observe the longstanding practice of using the term ‘Zionism’ and its kindred forms in regard to the entire period preceding Herzl. Indeed, Zionism, understood as an idea coupled with effort on behalf of creating a Jewish state in Palestine, came into fruition in the early decades of the 19 th century among British Evangelical Christians, as Israeli scholar Anita Shapira has stressed. Theodor Herzl, however, speaking at the close of the First Zionist Congress held in Basel on 31 August 1897, even before he gratefully acknowledged the pioneering role of many Jewish Zionists, said: ‘We must, moreover, thank the Christian Zionists.’ Wisse stated: ‘Twenty years before the rise of Zionism, put forth the idea that Jews had to reclaim their national sovereignty in the Land of Israel’. In the introduction to her recent lecture-series on Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, Harvard Professor of Yiddish and Comparative Literature Ruth R.
Later, pioneer Zionist Nahum Sokolow wrote: ‘In the Valhalla of the Jewish people, among the tokens of homage offered by the genius of centuries, Daniel Deronda will take its place as the proudest testimony to the English recognition of the Zionist idea.’ In this essay, in honour of the 200 th anniversary of Eliot’s birth, Philip Earl Steele examines the influence of the novel on the nascent Zionist movement and locates it within the wider movement of 19 th century British Christian Zionism. The impact of George Eliot’s 1876 novel Daniel Deronda was central to the coalescence of the first Zionist movement, Hovevei Zion, in the early 1880s.
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