‘If we cannot get the Holy Land, we can make another land holy’ – Israel Zangwill, 1906.
Rachel Cockerell joins historian Trudy Gold to reveal the astonishing moment when 10,000 Russian Jews fled to Texas before WWI – led by Cockerell’s great-grandfather, and the novelist Israel Zangwill. It was part of a search for an alternative Jewish homeland, from Australia to Angola to Antarctica, when Palestine seemed unattainable in the early 1900s. Melting Point – which Jonathan Freedland calls ‘unforgettable’ and Andrew Marr calls ‘truly radical’ – follows Cockerell’s family to Kyiv, Texas, New York, London and Jerusalem, as each chooses to cling to their history or melt into the melting pot. 

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