In the U.S., the stock market crash brought formerly wealthy individuals to their knees, forced to beg for their daily bread. Across the nation, resourceful women revived the WWI effort by once again planting “victory gardens” in window boxes to feed their families during those lean times. In Eretz Yisrael, the horrific Hebron massacre left no Jewish heart unscathed.

When yeshivah bochur Motty Rothstein is unaccounted for after the pogrom, Emanuel must travel to Hebron in search of his younger brother as their father and mother wait and worry.

Emanuel’s wife, Esther, left behind and childless, reconnects with family members and learns some frightening news. She sets out to help them, but is called away unexpectedly.

Is Motty among the living? And if so, where is he, and why hasn’t he been in touch? Why does Emanuel end up jailed in the Russian Compound? And how does Esther become known as the “Doll maker of Shaare Zedek”?