Meital, a Jewish Israeli New Yorker studying at Columbia University finds herself in the mystical backwaters of Java at age 19 and falls in love with Yudi, a handsome Muslim Indonesian villager.
Against the wishes of Meital’s parents – whose ideology was born out of the Holocaust, Israeli nationalism and memories of the Cuban revolution – the two elope and marry. While defiantly choosing her. life partner might seem like her greatest conquest upon entering adulthood, she then goes on a twenty-year journey of unfathomable devotion to win back her parents’ love and acceptance. In the process, she travels the world and transcends cultures, one nation at a time.