Bitter Herbs and Honey tells a richly textured story of the making of multi-cultural Australia. Through the saga of the the story of the Jewish migrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, who made their first home in Melbourne's inner-city suburb of Carlton, the film explores issues at the heart of Australia's development towards cultural diversity. The film builds a picture of poor immigrants who left Europe in the period of turmoil preceding, and in the wake of, the Second World War, having lost everything spiritually and materially. In a country most had never heard of on the other side of the earth, they began to rebuild their lives.