Traveling through the Ukraine, Romania, and Turkey, Michael Benanav documents the incredible story of his grandmother Isadora, who was deported along with every Jew in Romania and held captive in a frozen Ukrainian area called Transnistria. Near the end of the Nazi occupation, Isa returned to Bucharest. She emigrated to Palestine on the Toros, the ship on which she met the author’s grandfather, Joshua. Letters chronicle both the love affair, the birth of the Zionist movement, and the resurgence of Jewish writers in Europe.

This story is a beautiful tapestry woven by an award-winning young writer, accompanied by vivid full-color photographs.