Ukraine, 1941. Bella Kaplan could never please her strict mother, Nina. Stubborn and wild, she was the opposite of her perfect sister Sofia. When the Nazis force her family to flee, life becomes even harder. After surviving the war in Uzbekistan and returning to a ruined home, they must rebuild from scratch. Living in poverty and constantly berated by her mother, Bella learns not to expect much from life. But deep down, she knows she deserves better. She deserves to be loved.

Fed up with following Nina’s orders, Bella leaves everything behind to build her own life. She enrolls in university and falls for Anatoly, a handsome young man her mother would never approve of because he isn’t Jewish. But when Bella thinks she finally has it all, her life begins to unravel. Between an alcoholic husband and a resentful son, she cannot escape her mother’s scathing judgment.

Decades later, facing the hardest choice of her life — immigrating to Israel at 54 or staying with her adult son in Ukraine — Bella must finally decide: does she deserve to choose herself? Based on a true story, All She Ever Wished For is a powerful multigenerational saga spanning eight decades (1937–2023) and multiple continents, from wartime Ukraine through the cotton fields of Uzbekistan and the Soviet industrial landscapes of Kharkiv and Makiivka, to the sun-drenched streets of Rehovot and Mazkeret Batya, Israel.