Israel at 60

“The hinge of possibility is that among the Jews there may arise some men of instruction and ardent public spirit, some new Ezras, some modern Maccabees, who will know how to use all favouring outward conditions, how to triumph by heroic example, over the indifference of their fellows and the scorn of their foes, and will steadfastly set their faces towards making their people once more one among the nations.”

Novelist George Eliot making a case for Zionism in 1879 — 17 years before the publication of Theodor Herzl’s “The Jewish State.”