Date: Tuesday | October 28

Time: 5:30 pm 
Place: CCSRE Conference Room (Bldg. 360, first floor)

Can a compelling history be written purely with citations?  How have scholars and storytellers used archives to document and narrate Jewish experience?  How can archives and archivists shape storytelling?

Join us for a conversation with Rachel Cockerell, author of Melting Point, a new book that engages with all of these questions and so much more. Cockerell has crafted an insightful and engrossing account of American Jewish experience traced from an idea of Zion, to a pilgrimage to Galveston Texas, to the theaters of New York City, and to Jewish family homes in London, before, during, and after WW2. Indeed, Melting Point is a family story that’s actually the story of the modern Zionist movement, and its offshoots. It’s a nonfiction book that takes an unconventional form, relying on primary sources—newspapar clippings, letters, interviews—and that’s it. The Berman Archive at Stanford played a small part in the book’s creation, so we’re particularly excited to connect with Cockerell for what will be a compelling public conversation.

This event is co-sponsored by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies and the Berman Archive at Stanford.