Two grief-stricken souls who meet amidst the tumultuous transitions in late 19th-century Palestine attempt to build new lives together. Fanya, having fled the Russian progroms that killed most of her family, arrives in Jaffa with her baby, uncle and brother. Yechiel, from Safed, is a widowed father whose wife succumbed to malaria. Disoriented and desperate to start over, Fanya agrees to marry Yechiel, but cannot return his love. Something standing in the way threatens her very survival in the close-knit, male-dominated community that has taken her in. The film is based on the best-selling novel by Shulamit Lapid.