The Boy with the Back­ward Heart is a mem­oir of adop­tion, med­ical cri­sis, and the qui­et moral reck­on­ings at the cen­ter of a Jew­ish woman’s effort to build a fam­i­ly on her own. What unfolds is an odyssey shaped by Jew­ish ideals of per­sis­tence and chesed. At its heart, it is a sto­ry of tikkun olam—how the love of an orphan born a thou­sand miles away repairs, stead­ies, and bright­ens the world of a for­eign cor­re­spon­dent for one of the world’s largest news agen­cies, a woman who has spent years long­ing for a child. Thread­ed through­out is wry Jew­ish humor and resilience: that dis­tinct­ly Jew­ish blend of grit and wit as she shoul­ders the pro­found chal­lenge of rais­ing a child with a rare med­ical condition.