Avram Rogowsky grew up in Bialystok, then a part of the Russian Empire and now in Poland, near its eastern border with Belarus. In 1914, he escaped from the czar's army, boarded a ship for Palestine and planned to send for his betrothed, Miriam Wasilsky. When Avram finally reached the Holy Land, however, he found a deeply unsettled political landscape, unfit for a new bride. So he sent Miriam a me…