A beautiful young Juliet caught between the religious roots of her family’s orthodoxy and an alcoholic atheist, the Romeo she loves, is driven to a pharmaceutical overdose … and death by the family’s revengeful rabbi who claims to have the ear of God. 

SYNOPSIS:

A pharmaceutical overdose takes the life of Rebecca, a beautiful young woman caught between the man she loves and the religious roots of her family’s orthodoxy. An alcoholic atheist, her lover and the father of her child, is driven away by her deep-seated guilt, only to return with revenge in his heart; and an orthodox Rabbi who claims to have the ear of God is the mastermind manipulator behind her guilt and eventual death in this explosive triangle overrun with secrets, suspense, and retribution.

Early in Rebecca’s journey she meets Leonard in America after running away from an arranged marriage— her father’s dogmatic demands and unsuccessful insistence she marry the Rabbi’s son after the Rabbi himself proposes the union.

Months later Rebecca returns to Jerusalem with Leonard and his child in her belly, only to be thrown out of the house she grew up in by her own father. During that visit Rebbe Schoenfeld insists on seeing Rebecca, alone, and it is at that first meeting he warns her of the All Mighty’s wrath—An Eye for an Eye.

For many years thereafter, despite the Rebbe’s warning, Rebecca and Leonard happily raise their son far from Jerusalem. But then, on the first night of Chanukah, a freak explosion takes the lives of her parents and six siblings. According to the newspapers, the odds were one in one hundred million that lightning would strike at the very moment the petrol nozzle malfunctioned.

Again she returns to Jerusalem, this time to bury her loved ones. And again she meets with Rebbe Schoenfeld alone, hoping he will exonerate her. Instead, he claims to be a messenger of God; that her sacrilege caused the All Mighty to act. From God’s tongue to his ears, that’s how he knew. “And God informed me he will act again, possibly toward your son,” he warns Rebecca if she doesn’t honor her Hasidic faith.

The tragic death of her family coupled with the Rebbe’s shocking threat propels her into the orthodox mindset of her father, eventually driving Leonard away. It takes her many years to break through that devout mindset and realize she hadn’t been made in her father’s image.

Just when she begins to make progress and acknowledges that to Leonard in an emotionally raw homecoming during which the two make love for the first time in years, Rebbe Schoenfeld enters her life once again. And again he demands she remain loyal to her faith, and to God—or else. It is that final meeting that drives her to her pills … and to her death, whether by accident or by design.

From clues left behind, Leonard learns of the Rebbe’s final confrontation and finds the will and the way to chase him down.

Emotional needs as destructive as the Rebbe’s narcissistic agenda of rage and revenge, and those as common as Rebecca’s God-fearing guilt and her desire to live her own life, fuel this heartfelt and poignant yet mysterious journey of a young Juliet whose only crime is the desire to choose her own Romeo.