In the days following the Six-Day War, a survivor of the Holocaust visits the reunited city of Jerusalem. At the Western Wall in the Old City, he encounters the beggars and madmen that congregate there every evening, who force him to confront the ghosts of his past and his ties to the present.

Weaving together myth and mystery, parable and paradox, Wiesel beckons the reader on a spiritual journey back and forth in time, always returning to Jerusalem.