The Pomegranate Pendant

Book excerpt: LARGE PRINT EDITION FOR EASY READING: When Mazal and Ezra ben-Yichya embarked in 1882 on their long journey from Sana'a to the Holy Land, their young hearts were filled with dreams of the glory they were sure awaited them in Jerusalem. But those dreams were quickly dispelled by the reality they encountered: dark, towering walls of stone and a community of pious but impoverished Jews with customs foreign to them. How would the ben-Yichyas find their place in this new world peopled by European Torah scholars, and who would buy the exquisite jewelry they fashioned? This stirring saga spans four generations of a family of Yemenite goldsmiths at the vortex of history in the Land of Israel. Their tragedies and triumphs, their sorrows and joys, and most of all, the heroine's profound love for the Holy City, create a vivid and lasting image of an ancient land rising from two millennia of slumber to an era of splendor.