Helmut Glenk

Sarona Helmut Glenk

In the early 1930s, Tel Aviv was a melting pot of ethnicities, cultures, and religious backgrounds. Living in the German agricultural settlement, known as "Sarona," is a young man named Erich. Erich is a descendant of the Sarona settlement founder-a Christian German, who belonged to the group known as the Templers. Life is without conflict for Erich-until his eighteenth birthday, when he meets Ruth. Ruth is a young Jewess-a granddaughter of one of the early Zionist settlers in the Holy Land. In Tel Aviv, the Germans and the Jewish settlers were not to have contact, let alone romantic relations. Still, Erich and Ruth can't resist, even as the world around them threatens their relationship with problems far beyond the normal bounds of boy meets girl. There is the question of German Nazism, forbidding liaisons between German and Jew. There is also the Jewish tradition of discouraging intermarriage. Events in their own settlements not only threaten their love, but also their lives. In the late 1930s, Palestine was wracked by three-way political violence between the British, Jews, and Arabs, tearing them both apart. Despite war, despite distance, despite the ridicule of others, Erich and Ruth fight for the love they have found. Will their love ever be accepted, or will death separate them for good?