The series is a story of a Haredi family living in Jerusalem’s ultra-religious Mea Shearim neighborhood. Schoolteachers Akiva and Shulem Shtisel, father and son, sit on a little balcony overlooking streets of the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem. A year has passed since the mother died. All the other children have left the nest, and only Shulam and Akiva remain - quarreling, making up, and laughing about themselves and the rest of the world. Akiva seems to be out of step with everyone in his world and is happiest at the zoo, sketching animals. All that changes when Akiva meets Elisheva, the twice-widowed mother of one of his students, of whom his father does not approve, and who is wary of marrying again.