Build a movie plot around this: Prof. Malter goes to what city to attend a conference? Palestine
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City, 1944. Reuven "Robert" Malter and Daniel "Danny" Saunders are two 15-year-old Jewish youths living in the same predominant Jewish neighborhood whom have never met nor have anything in common.Reuven is a smart, popular in his community, Modern Orthodox Jew whose mother died during the early years of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany nearly 10 years earlier. Reuven's bitter, widowed father, David Malter, is a Talmudic scholar, college professor, and a practicing Zionist whom supports the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the hopes that he and his only son will return to someday to live for good and be free from worldwide persecution.Danny is a Hasidic Jew, and the first-born son of Reb Isaac Saunders, a Rabbinic sage and tzaddik who moved to the USA with his family and congregation from Russia before the 1917 October Revolution. Danny is also highly intelligent with a photographic memory, and interested in psychology (particularly Freudian psychoanalysis) but lacking in aptitude for mathematics. He wants to become a psychologist, but he feels trapped by the Hasidic tradition which forces him into the role as next in line to succeed his father as Rabbi.Reuven and Danny meet for the first time as rivals in a softball game between their high school teams that turns into a spiritual war. Danny's batting style is such that the ball is sent speeding back up the middle of the field, and so he receives a reputation of trying to kill pitchers. Angered by unsuccessful attempts to hit Reuven's previous pitches, Danny hits a line drive toward Reuven, shattering his eyeglasses and sending him to the hospital with an injured left eye. While recovering from his injuries, Danny visits Reuven and apologizes and the two become best friends over time despite the difference between their different Jewish cultures. Reuven learns that Danny's father, a respected Rabbi, only talks to Danny during religious conversations - Danny is being brought up "in silence". Reuven also learns Danny's deepest...