Menachem Kagan deftly weaves suspenseful stories, complex characters and the tides of history spanning seven centuries. Jews in a 12th-century French town grapple with an outrageous anti-Semitic charge against them. The weary rabbi, the young families, the simple tradesmen, all look to the scholar who is the only one who can possibly save them. In fifteenth century Spain, a Christian is inspired by a clandestine circle of Jewish conversos to seek his own long-buried Jewish heritage, and learns the secret of Jewish survival. Two hundred years later, a Polish town is bitterly divided between believers and non-believers in the false messiah, Shabbtai Tzvi. Parents and sons, husbands and wives, rabbis and laymen battle as the powerful fervor reaches a deadly crescendo. And centuries later, an assimilated Parisian Jew is magnetically drawn to the Judaism he despised as he races to escape the Nazi killing machine.

How are they connected? Read this realistic and compelling story and you’ll find out!