Of all the pithy sayings about the Jews and their national homeland attributed to Theodor Herzl, the one that has perhaps received the least attention (and gained the least currency) is the following: "Zionism is our return to Judaism even before our return to the Jewish land."

And then there is the matter of his novel Old-New Land. It seems that Herzl's novel is always described as a "utopian novel" the way in epic poetry the sea is always a "wine-dark sea." There is ample evidence to show, through a close reading of the text, that not only is the story told by Herzl anti-utopian, but also that it is anti-utopian in an uncannily Jewish way. The big difference between Herzl's novel and, for example, the utopian novel of Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1887), is Herzl's conviction that while it is possible to redeem man, it is neither possible nor desirable to change his nature. To save the Jewish people one doesn't need the metaphorical wolf to lie down with the lamb.

Of particular interest is the description of the night out at the theater enjoyed by the novel's main protagonist, Friedrich Loewenberg, to which he is taken by his hosts, the leaders of the New Society in Palestine. Although we are told that "there are excellent French and Italian companies in Haifa just now," our wide-eyed tourist is given a "choice" between two "Jewish" plays (one, in truth, an opera). In 1902, the year of the publication of the novel, at a time when Herzl's leadership of the Zionist movement had been the target of heavy ad hominem criticism, the titles of these fictional plays-Moses and Sabbatai Zevi-are no coincidence. Is Herzl the leader of the Exodus to the promised land? Or is he a false messiah? Ironically, not shy of opening himself up to the latter charge, Herzl decides to take his characters to Sabbatai Zevi, where Herzl gives his readers a history lesson about Jewish redemption. If the plot of the opera is the text, the conversation between the characters at the entr'acte may be read as the exegetical commentary on the text, placing it in the novel's modern context. And the Zionist lesson of this mixing of the old with the new -expressed Jewishly as the nimshal (moral) of a parable - is that Jewish redemption does not need a false messiah but must be seized by the individuals that make up the Jewish people.

Then there is the celebration of the Passover Seder. The recitation of the Haggada-a blend of the old (the various items in the "order" of the seder are "set" into the text like precious stones in a ring), with the new-is described by Herzl as a "passing over" of the old into the new. The recitation of the story of the founding of Old-New Land, inserted didactically into the narrative (what is the Haggada after all, if not a history lesson?), is presented as a new version of the recitation of the Exodus by the Rabbis of the Haggadah: "This is our evening of Bnei Berak." At the end, one of the guests breaks in to assert that the story of the New Society is a new Had Gadya. He observes, inserting himself into the Jewish liturgy. "The ox is replaced by coal, the coal is replaced by water for hydro-electric power." Then he concludes, like the Ehad Mi-Yodea hymn, "And above all is God." Friedrich, the erstwhile assimilated dandy, spouting Hebrew at the seder like a yeshiva boy, becomes a hozer bi-teshuva, "a prodigal son, returned to his own people."

It is in the Jerusalem the conclusion of the novel that solidifies its Jewish quality. It is not that in this Jerusalem the Temple-without sacrifices, to be sure-is rebuilt. That is actually nothing more than a Great Synagogue. Nor is the founding of Jewish Academy on the model of the Academie Francaise a Jewish turning point. Rather, it is embodied in one person, Dr. Marcus, the venerable president of the Jewish Academy. He represents the spirit of Old-New Land. Quoting Ecclesiastes, he expresses the leitmotif that runs through the novel. Yes, he concurs, "There is nothing new under the sun." Looking toward the future, there is only the "Old-New." And because it is seen through the prism of Jewish text, whether you will it or not, it is Jewish.