{"id":17618,"date":"2025-06-30T19:13:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T23:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17618"},"modified":"2025-06-30T19:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T23:17:15","slug":"episode-645-rachel-cockerell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-645-rachel-cockerell","title":{"rendered":"Episode 645 – Rachel Cockerell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 645:
\nRachel Cockerell<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_645_-_Rachel_Cockerell.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“I kept coming back to the notion that there’s no easy answers. I hope that the reader is changing their mind every few pages, because the book is about the search for a promised land, and it’s this question of a Jewish refuge that turns around and around over the decades.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>How did Russian Jews wind up migrating to Galveston, Texas<\/em> in the early 1900s? How did the image of America as melting pot come into existence? How did a family memoir evolve into a forgotten history of Zionism? Find out during my conversation with Rachel Cockerell<\/a> about her amazing new book, MELTING POINT: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land<\/a> (FSG)! We talk about the tightrope walk of composing a history solely out of primary sources and why she eschewed the author’s voice for this book, her grudging acceptance of Robert Caro’s maxim to Turn Every Page<\/a>, and how her perspective on Jewishness changed over the course of writing the book. We get into the once-titanic literary figure of Israel Zangwill<\/a> and how he gave it up to find a homeland for the world’s Jews, how Zangwill invented the notion of the melting pot and whether he truly believed in assimilationism, the inspiration of George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo<\/a> on Melting Point<\/em>, and how Rachel got over the notion that the past was just a lead-up to now. We also discuss her next book on Halley’s Comet and whether she’ll stick with her primary sources-mode in future books, how her family reacted to seeing their stories (& contradictions) on the page, how a 90-year-old distant relative stole the show, and a lot more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read MELTING POINT<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“I’m only a Londoner because Israel Zangwill said to my great-grandfather, ‘You should get out of the Russian empire, and come to London; your future belongs to England and your daughters are destined to become English.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n