Yitzchak Blum is a successful Israeli diamond dealer with a soft spot for needy children. The bulk of his wealth and resources are invested in the Beis Hayeled Home for Jewish Boys, a loving haven he established for children without homes to call their own. Yet in his efforts to ensure the home's financial stability and secure future, Yitzchak is forced to hire a new administrator, who quickly threatens to destroy everything he has worked to achieve. At the same time, a shocking terror attack leaves Yitzchak's beloved daughter Nechama and granddaughter Miri badly wounded, and forces the extended family to contend with a new and painful reality. Nechama's promising event planning and stage production career is brutally cut short, and that sends her plummeting into a deep depression from which she has neither the desire nor motivation to emerge. And as if Yitzchak's life is not complicated enough, he receives an unwelcome request from an unwelcome guest— to support the battle against blood diamonds, the illegal diamonds used to finance wars in Africa. Though Africa is far off, the danger to Yitzchak is getting closer... We then travel into the past and meet Jeremy Gray, an American soldier stationed in post-Holocaust Europe, which is still reeling from six years of blood- shed. Jeremy's encounter with a young survivor changes his life forever, and he brings the child across the Atlantic to raise as his own, much to the consternation of Jeremy's family back in the States. Will Yitzchak escape with his life? Will Nechama manage to restart her own? Will the orphanage survive? Will Jeremy succeed on the mission of a lifetime? Rough Diamonds, Esther Toker's latest thought-provoking drama, draws readers into a magical tapestry that melds past and present and leads us to ponder the meaning of love, family, strength, and perseverance.
