Hanah’s Sheep and Cattle is based on the improbable but true story of a strong, secular Jewish woman and former Zionist pioneer navigating the turbulent sweep of Soviet history. Shira Gorshman’s autobiographical novel provides unique insights into Jewish life in 1920s Palestine and 1930s Soviet Crimea, but also covers recurrent universal themes: the tribulations of women, the value of sacrificing for the greater good, the virtue of hard work, and the inherent worth of creativity.

The reader of Hanah’s Sheep and Cattle first encounters Hanah as an idealistic and outspoken young, single mother and manager of livestock operations on a Soviet Jewish commune. But the privation of the prewar years, the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, and the horrors of World War II take their toll. Despite it all, hard work and creativity enable Hanah to survive and, ultimately, to transform her grief into art.