Gitai explores the birth of modern Israel through the lives of two Jewish women, both formidable historical figures. In Berlin between the wars, Expressionist poet and artist Else Lasker-Shü;ler, friend of Kandinksy, Einstein, and Mann, meets Tania, who has fled Russia following her revolutionary activities. Their two stories interweave, separate, and reconnect to develop a fictionalized tale based on utopian dreams and disenchantment. Else witnesses the growing Nazi persecution in Germany, and her own Hebrew Ballads are among the books burned by the Nazis. Tania, a character inspired by Mania Shochat, soon relocates to Palestine and pioneers the first agricultural collectives. One migrates to follow a vision, the other in reaction to political persecution: the two categories of Israel's founders. Gitai comments: "The mythology surrounding our pioneers is extremely powerful and shapes present-day attitudes in all kinds of ways....The pioneers were magnificent because they were human and not because they were walking icons. And being human implies doubt and fear and hesitation-depression, too, and occasionally hopelessness."