To the distinguished historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, Daniel Deronda is the “most remarkable English novel about Jews” ever written. Penned by a non-Jewish woman, George Eliot, Daniel Deronda anticipates the idea of the Jewish state decades before the modern Zionist movement came into being. It is also a masterful novel of ideas about the human condition. 

In this online course, Professor Ruth Wisse will show you how this novel deftly illuminates the powerful pull of Jewish tradition, the strengths and vulnerabilities of European liberalism, and the blessings and burdens of love, marriage, family life, and cultural renewal.  

The novel’s sophisticated story and its vibrant characters, like the titular Daniel Deronda and the stunning Gwendolyn Harleth

Why George Eliot was inspired to write a novel about Jews for a 19th-century non-Jewish audience

How Eliot understood the future of the West, and the importance of the Jews in its story

Why this book is the very best text in the English language for thinking through the imperatives for a national Jewish home

Ruth Wisse is one of our age’s preeminent teachers and scholars of Jewish literature and ideas. She is currently the Distinguished Senior Fellow at Tikvah and Professor Emerita of Yiddish and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her books include If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (1992), The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture (2000), Jews and Power (2007), and No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (2013). Her writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Mosaic, Commentary, and many other publications. Her memoir, Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation, was published in 2021. 

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