The year is 1651. It is not long after the horrendous Cossack massacres of 1648-1649. The brilliant and charismatic Shabbesai Tzvi gathers many disciples and eventually proclaims himself the Messiah and promises to end the seemingly interminable exile. This historic story is told through the eyes of the fictional Strasbourg and Tomashov families, who follow the dramatic events from Smyrna to Salonika to Cairo to Jerusalem. The story reaches its climactic conclusion in Constantinople when Shabbesai Tzvi attempts to take the imperial crown from the sultan’s head and place it on his own.