Overview
Ellis Island is a 1983 historical novel by Fred Mustard Stewart.
A year after its publication a miniseries was filmed in the United Kingdom, based on this book.
Plot
In 1907 Jacob Rubinstein, a Russian Jew, leaves his village after it is attacked by cossacks. He heads for Hamburg, Germany, hoping that he can sail to America. While in Hamburg, he meets an African American called Roscoe Haines, who, after seeing his talent for playing Ragtime, encourages Jacob to go and see a music publisher called Abe Shulman in New York.
When on the ship, Jacob meets an Italian from Sicily named Marco Santorelli. Marco had been the gardener for the English actress Maude Charteris. She wanted him to move to London with her but he refused as he wanted to go to America to make his fortune.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
