When Mayer (née Marty) Belkin fled small-town Georgia for Brooklyn nearly thirty years ago, he thought he d left his wasted youth behind. Now he s a Talmud scholar married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world – a dirt-poor country boy reinvented in the image of God.

But his mother s untimely death brings a shocking revelation: Mayer and his ne er-do-well twin brother David aren t, in fact, Jewish. Traumatized and spiritually bereft, Mayer s only recourse is to convert to Judaism. But the earliest date he can get is a week from now. What are two estranged brothers to do in the interim?

So begins the Belkins Rumspringa through America s Deep South with Mom s ashes in tow, plus two tagalongs: an insightful Instagram influencer named Charlayne Valentine and Popeye, a one-eyed dog. As the crew gets tangled up in a series of increasingly surreal adventures, Mayer grapples with a God who betrayed him and an emotionally withdrawn wife in Brooklyn who has yet to learn her husband is a counterfeit Jew.