Rivka's Way

Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Rivka Liebermann, the daughter of a highly respected doctor in Prague’s walled Jewish quarter, has just learned of her arranged betrothal to Oskar Kara, her brother’s friend. Although Oskar seems gentle, kind, and wise, she hardly knows him. Whenever she thinks of the upcoming marriage, she feels a terrible pain in her stomach. Rivka thinks that if she could just leave the quarter for one day, she’d be happy. She wants desperately to walk through the streets of the city and see the marketplaces and bridges and hills her brother Jakob has described to her. But it is forbidden for a girl to leave the quarter on her own. But what if she dressed as a Gentile boy? How difficult would it be to walk past the guard at the gate and explore the city? Does she dare? Once the plan enters her head, Rivka can’t let it go. She assembles a disguise and secretly leaves the quarter on her own. What she experiences outside the walls changes forever the way she thinks of her family, of the relations between Jews and Christians, and of herself and Oskar.

Unsure about her upcoming marriage and eager to see what lies beyond the walls of Prague's Jewish quarter in 1778, fifteen-year-old Rivka Lieberman takes great risks to venture outside, where her many new experiences include friendship with a Christian boy.