CHANUKAH 5786 Sec. E, P10
By Dan Fellner
GALVESTON, Texas — More than a century ago, this busy Gulf Coast port and longtime vacation destination 50 miles southeast of Houston welcomed so many European immigrants — including some 10,000 Jews — it earned the moniker “The Ellis Island of the West.”
Today, the few remaining descendants of Jewish immigrants from that time period still living on the island are determined to preserve the story of the Galveston Movement.
Galveston, an island-city of 53,000 residents, is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the country and the birthplace of the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery.
With 32 miles of brown-sand beaches, a charming historic district with numerous well-preserved Victorian-era homes, and some 80 festivals held year-round, the island annually attracts eight million tourists.
The Jewish community of Galveston produced five mayors, prominent business leaders and two highly renowned rabbis.
The Galveston Movement, also called the Galveston Plan, was a humanitarian effort operated by several Jewish organizations that brought Jewish immigrants from tsarist Russia and Eastern Europe through the port of Galveston between 1907 and 1914. Most arrived in Galveston on steamships from Bremen, Germany. The trip took two to three weeks.
A recent book by Rachel Cockerell — Melting Point — focuses on the Galveston Movement. Cockerell’s great-grandfather David Jochelmann played a key role in organizing the program in Europe.
She spoke last month at Galveston’s Temple B’nai Israel.
“I love it,” says Shelley Nussenblatt Kessler, 74, of the heightened attention on the Galveston Movement.
Kessler estimates she is one of 25 to 30 “BOIs” — shorthand for “Born on the Island” — still living in Galveston who are descendants of the Jewish immigrants who came to America as part of the program.
Her grandmother and grandfather immigrated from what is now western Ukraine to Galveston in 1910 and 1911.
“Not only am I very proud to be a descendant of two of these immigrants, but I can’t help but think of how lucky I am to be here,” she said.
Most Jews fleeing Russia after the 1881 anti-Semitic May Laws ended up in New York City or nearby locations, resulting in overcrowding and poverty.
Jacob Schiff, a New York banker and philanthropist, financed the Galveston Movement as a way to blunt an anticipated wave of anti-Semitism on the Eastern seaboard, which might lead to immigration restrictions.
Schiff sought to find suitable alternative destinations in the American South for the influx of Jewish immigrants.
Charleston, South Carolina, which had a long-established Jewish community, was considered but city leaders there only wanted Anglo-Saxon immigrants.
New Orleans was also in the mix but there were concerns about periodic outbreaks of yellow fever.
Enter Galveston, a port that checked all of the boxes. It had a deep-water harbor that could accommodate large ships and an extensive railroad system available to transport immigrants to other cities and towns.
“Really the purpose of Galveston was to channel the immigrants into other parts of Texas and up the middle of the country west of the Mississippi,” said Dwayne Jones, a historian who is CEO of the Galveston Historical Foundation.
Jones says there was another key reason Galveston was selected: There already was a well established Jewish community. Galvestonelected its first Jewish mayor — Dutch-born Michael Seeligson — in 1853.
“It was a more tolerant community with a depth of diversity you didn’t see in other places,” Jones said. “It also had a long history of Jewish leadership and activities in Galveston.
The first Reform congregation in Texas, Galveston’s Congregation B’nai Israel, was established in 1868.
Twenty years later, London-born Henry Cohen, who was only 25 at the time, became the congregation’s rabbi. Cohen led B’nai Israel for 64 years until his death in 1952.
In 1900 Galveston was decimated by a storm known as the Great Galveston Hurricane. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history, with an estimated 8,000 fatalities, about 20% of its population at the time.
Two-thirds of the island’s buildings and homes were destroyed. Cohen and other Jewish leaders played a major role in the relief and reconstruction efforts that followed.
The devastating historical event is retold in the riveting Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson, based on Isaac Cline, the city’s chief meterologist at the time.
Seven years after the hurricane, the first ship that was part of the Galveston Movement — the SS Cassel — arrived from Bremen with 86 Jewish passengers. Cohen — who was proficient in 10 languages — was the humanitarian face of the movement, meeting ships at the Galveston docks and helping guide the immigrants through the cumbersome arrival and distribution process.
The arrivals were processed at the Jewish Immigrants’ Information Bureau headquarters in Galveston, which gave the immigrants rations and railroad tickets to more than 150 towns in Texas and other places west of the Mississippi River.
Unlike a vast majority of the immigrants who had only a brief stopover in Galveston before settling in other communities, Kessler’s grandparents decided to remain on the island.
Her grandfather was a painting contractor while her grandmother worked as a housekeeper.
Adjusting to life in Texas proved to be a struggle for many immigrants. Kessler’s grandparents decided they would be happier back in Europe, even buying passage on a ship so they could return to their homeland. But WW I broke out, canceling their trip.
“The harbormaster told my grandparents to hold their tickets until after the war, and if you want to go back, we’ll redeem them,” Kessler said. “Thank G-d, they didn’t go back.”
By 1914, declining economic conditions and a surge in nativism and xenophobia brought an end to the Galveston Movement. The program resulted in an estimated 10,000 persecuted Jews finding new homes in places few had imagined.
The Galveston Historic Seaport Museum chronicles the immigrant experience in an interactive exhibit called “Ship to Shore.”
Computer terminals enable visitors to search for information taken from ships’ passenger manifests pertaining to their ancestors’ arrival in Texas. The Galveston County Museum, located inside the county courthouse, also features artifacts related to the Galveston Movement.
Kessler’s late husband Jimmy, who died in 2022, was B’nai Israel’s rabbi for 32 years until his retirement in 2014. He also was the founder and first president of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, which is now 45 years old and has more than 1,000 members.
Jimmy Kessler was devoted to telling the story of the Galveston Movement, including a biography he wrote about Henry Cohen, The Life of a Frontier Rabbi. The street on which B’nai Israel is located was renamed Jimmy Kessler Drive in 2018.
“I’m married to a street,” jokes Shelley Kessler. “Jimmy, with what he did to preserve Texas Jewish history, kept all of this [the Galveston Movement] in the forefront.”
B’nai Israel, which now has a membership of 125 families, relocated to a new building in 1955, named the Henry Cohen Memorial Temple.
The congregation’s original synagogue — built in 1870 — still stands on Kempner Street (named after a prominent Jewish family that included Mayor Isaac Kempner) in downtown Galveston. The building is now a private residence. Galveston also has a Conservative synagogue, Beth Jacob, founded in 1931.
Robert Goldhirsh, 75, former president of Congregation B’nai Israel and another descendant of immigrants from the Galveston Movement, has been the caretaker of the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery for the past three decades.
Several hundred Jews — some of whom came to America in the Galveston Movement — are buried in the cemetery.
Both Goldhirsh and Kessler say that despite perceptions of deep-rooted intolerance in Texas, they’ve encountered little to no anti-Semitism in Galveston.
“Most of the people I know, it makes no difference that I’m Jewish,” Goldhirsh said. “We’re just Galvestonians.”
Goldhirsh says the biggest threat to Jewish life on the island comes from Mother Nature. Recent years have seen a significant rise in weather-related disasters in Texas.
For instance, Hurricane Ike in 2008 led to widespread flooding on Galveston Island and caused water damage in both synagogues.
“During one of the High Holiday services, there was a hurricane headed this way and we had to cancel for fear that the congregants would be caught in a bad storm,” he recalled. “You have to listen to the weather reports. If they say ‘leave,’ you better leave.”