🎤︎︎ New Five Books Episode: Rachel Cockerell on The Zionist Dream That Sailed to Galveston

On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews sets sail not to Jerusalem or New York, as many on board have dreamed, but to Texas. The man who persuades the passengers to go is David Jochelmann, Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather. The journey marks the beginning of the Galveston Movement, a forgotten moment in history when ten thousand Jews fled to Texas in the leadup to World War I.

In a highly inventive style, Cockerell captures history as it unfolds, weaving together letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, and interviews into a vivid account. Melting Point follows Zangwill and the Jochelmann family through two world wars, to London, New York, and Jerusalem―as their lives intertwine with some of the most memorable figures of the twentieth century, and each chooses whether to cling to their history or melt into their new surroundings. It is a story that asks what it means to belong, and what can be salvaged from the past.

Rachel Cockerell was born and raised in London, the sixth of seven children. She did her BA at the Courtauld Institute and her MA at City University. Melting Point is her first nonfiction book. Her research has taken her to Texas, Ohio, New York, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.

In our conversation, we explore assimilation — both as a theoretical concept and as a deeply personal experience. We also discuss the power of reading history through primary sources, and the ways we often misunderstand our own significance.

Click on the graphic above to listen!

Rachel Cockerell’s Five Books

1. The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal 

2. When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann

3. Orbital by Samantha Harvey

4. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

5. Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land by Rachel Cockerell

What Else We’re Reading Now:

Five Books Producer Odelia Rubin has been doing a Grace Paley deep dive! There is something about Grace’s kindness, her activism, and her curiosity about humanity that feels like a balm for our time.

On Odelia’s reading and listening list: 

• Grace Paley Selected Stories Audiobook, read by Grace Paley

• A Grace Paley Reader : Stories, Essays, and Poetry (2017, edited by Kevin Bowen and Nora Paley, introduction by George Saudners)

• Studs Terkel audio interview with Grace Paley  (Studs Terkel, 1985)

• To celebrate its 100th year, The New Yorker invited fiction writers to contribute stories inspired by works from the archive, then to explain why those works inspired them. Zadie Smith chose Grace Paley’s My Father Addresses Me On The Facts of Old Age (Grace Paley, New Yorker, 2002). You can read Zadie Smith’s essay here and the story she was inspired to write: The SIlence (Zadie Smith, New Yorker, 2025).

• George Saunders has been writing about Grace Paley in his substack: 

  • A Lesson on Grace

  • A Story, Refined (discussion of “A Conversation with my Father”)

• You can also find several authors reading and discussing her stories in the New Yorker Fiction podcast. Here are links to episodes with: Allan Gurganus , George Saunders (again!), Nell Freudenberger , and Gish Jen .

What else we’re reading now:

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode! Tell us what you think at [email protected] or by replying to this email!

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