The steamship SS Cassel, brimming with Russian Jewish passengers, anchored at Galveston, Texas, on July 1st, 1907. This ship was the vanguard of a stream of around 10,000 refugees escaping acts of violence in Russia and East Europe, a figure comparable to one-third of those migrated to Palestine during the identical phase. The Galveston Plan, upon reflection not extensively grasped, operated until 1914. The fundamental intention was the redirection of immigrants from the congested New York towards the less dense interiors of the US.
Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather, David Jochelmann played a pivotal role cooperating with his bosom friend, Israel Zangwill in appealing to Russian Jews to partake in the plan. Known familiarly as ‘The Dickens of the Ghetto’, Zangwill was a persuasive novelist. The entire venture was monetarily backed by the generous funds of invested $500,000 by Jacob Schiff, a philanthropist based in New York.
Before the approval of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 advocating for a Jewish state and the mandate for Palestine in the accomplishing stages of World War I, Zionists darted the earth for a provisional haven. Australia, Canada, Mexico, and even the frosty Antarctica were among the numerous regions contemplated, including Kenya, false identity with Uganda then. “If we cannot get the Holy Land, we can make another land holy,” was the spirit espoused by Zangwill in 1906. Nonetheless, the American West was seen with a hint of reservation, fearing the possibility of disintegration of the distinct Jewish identity in the insatiable American ‘melting pot’.
Cockerell’s approach is rather distinctive. She assembles bits and pieces from primary resources – such as newspaper reports, letters, memoirs and oral accounts, decluttered of any added commentary from the author. Her methodology was inspired by George Saunders’s 2017 Booker-winning novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which amalgamated authentic 19th-century narratives with invented historical passages. However, Cockerell deliberately omits any narration. Initiated as a standard family history, she later found herself agitated by her own contributions and finalised by allowing the original voices to resonate.
Additionally, she keenly observed women’s attitudes towards money; she listened to their conversations and watched what they spent it on. The outcome was astoundingly revealing.
Divided into three unique sections, the book delves into extensive topics: Zionism, Galveston, the life of David Jochelmann’s pioneer son Emjo Basshe, the renowned founder of the New Playwrights Theater who relocated to New York as an adolescent, and Jochelmann’s subsequent life in London after escaping Kyiv due to the onset of World War I. It also elaborates on Jochelmann’s subtle change of the family’s surname driven by his fear of appearing German and his adversities against Nazis, the family’s journey through the Second World War, and his other son’s emigration to Israel with his family in 1949.
At some instances, Cockerell meanders beyond the limits of family lineage to sketch History in a broader sense. Jochelman, who breathed his last in 1941, had made significant contributions to alleviate the plight of underprivileged Jews, earning him recognition in numerous Jewish households across Eastern Europe, as evidenced by his New York Times obituary. However, he chose to remain a hidden figure, as mentioned by one of Cockerell’s informers. Jochelman’s persona unfurls from the depths of oblivion as he never encapsulated his life in writings.
With ‘Melting Point’, Cockerell seeks to imbue readers with the historical context just as it resonated with her. Readers find themselves immersing in an exhilarating exploration of archives that she was privileged to access in libraries globally after the pandemic. The book enlivens characters like the author Zangwill, playwright John Dos Passos who collaborated with Emjo, and Jo, Emjo’s daughter whose memories of yesteryears are filled with information about routine life. As quoted from WG Sebald by Cockerell, the fleeting nature of life stands testament to the oblivion that consumes us as we can retain so little.
Cockerell’s undertaking occasionally gets clouded when she ventures beyond the confines of the familial history to encompass the larger-scale historical context. Despite Jochelman’s absence from the initial quarter of the book, it’s impossible to disregard the important background information on pogroms and Zionism, which act as catalysts for the Galveston Plan. The recent surge in anti-Semitic incidents makes it all the more jarring to reflect on Theodor Herzl’s remark made over a century ago, about the perpetual hatred that continued to linger, in an otherwise progressing era. On the other hand, a chapter discussing the Zionism controversy after Jochelman’s demise invariably has political undertones, whether intentional or unintentional.
Cockerell’s distinct style sparks a debate on the responsibility of a biographer or historian in determining the significance of facts in an already curated record. As Janet Malcolm pointed out, biographies often fall short of feeling as authentic as a well-crafted piece of fiction due to the blend of varying sources like letters, remembrances, and other data which often creates a discord between the narrative and the core material.
Despite recent disappointments with historical fiction, it felt refreshing that Cockerell refrained from venturing into this genre. The few glimpses of her voice that do emerge (in the prologue, epilogue, and even acknowledgments), are captivating. It evokes intrigue about what the future holds for this first-time author.