"The story mirrors the tragedy of the Jews of the Roman world trying to keep their traditions alive in the midst of scorn and exclusion. The legend in the making is created out of the fate of the seven branched candelabrum from the Temple of Solomon, seized by the Vandals in the sacking of Rome, carried to Carthage, kept there for a generation and taken again in the plundering of the Emperor Justinian who takes it to Constantinople. The connecting link between the two is Benjamin, who as a child was the last to see and touch the candlestick, and at eighty is called upon by his people to attempt to rescue it and restore it to Jerusalem. A fable which is symbolic of a great race, with its strength and weakness, and which rings true to the spirit of legend. "--Kirkus.