It{u2019}s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they{u2019}ve never met, not until the day an accident during a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys{u2014}one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America{u2014}are drawn into one another{u2019}s worlds despite one father{u2019}s strong opposition.