Chasha Schumacher hates her life in Brinitz, a poor shtetl in the far reaches of the dying Russian Empire, whose conservative Jewish community has long been plagued by oppression and economic ruin. But when her old flame Herschel returns from years abroad seeking to stir up change in the community with a new and subversive ideology, she sees an opportunity to reshape her entire world. While Tsarist authorities struggle to restrain the city's increasingly radical working class, Chasha is compelled to take history into her own hands.