Loosely based on the biography of the Russian-born writer Alberto Gerchunoff, who became famous for his portrayal of Jewish gauchos living on the Argentinean pampas, the story of Naftali follows the adventures of a twelve-years old boy who escapes the Russia of the 19th century and moves with his family, under the sponsorship of the philanthropist Baron Maurice Hirsch, to a Jewish colony in Argentina, in the hope of finding a worry-free life free of the Russian Tsar and anti-Semitism. Along the way Naftali befriends a local eccentric with a dog so old that it has to be pulled on a platform...