is the story of Edith and Jacob Hirsch and their two children, Dinah and Teddy, who live in a suburb of Jerusalem among neighbors they have known for many years. Edith's protected life comes to an end when she must face the bitter fact that her beautiful daughter at eighteen is more a soldier than a farmer and that the kibbutz where Dinah now lives is a military fortress, despite its newly planted orchards. The heroic sacrifices, the well-meaning mistakes, and the suspicions of a people living through the grueling 1948 siege of Jerusalem weave together into a dramatic portrayal of ordinary people in times of deep unrest. Originally published in 1951, was one of the first American novels published about the Israeli war for independence. Told from the mother's perspective, shows the devotion and wrenching cost required to make an ancient dream of a new state into a modern reality. Zelda Popkin (1898–1983) wrote numerous detective stories and novels. She and her husband, Louis Popkin, created one of the first public relations firms in the United States and ran it together until his death in 1943. Introducer Jeremy D. Popkin, the grandson of Zelda Popkin, is a professor of history at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and the author of several books on the history of journalism.