Reluc­tant to vis­it what she thinks will be a bor­ing archae­o­log­i­cal site dur­ing her fam­i­ly trip to Israel, Bec­ca only wish­es to be back home hav­ing a fun sum­mer with her best friend. Nev­er­the­less, here she is at Beit Guvrin, a site where she vis­its an ancient cave and finds an arti­fact, a pre­cious gold ear­ring that even she has to admit is fas­ci­nat­ing. Her find has the unex­pect­ed ben­e­fit of bring­ing her to the atten­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty of archae­ol­o­gists, who laud her for her sig­nif­i­cant discovery.

Alter­nat­ing chap­ters fol­low a Jew­ish fam­i­ly who lived in the area close to two thou­sand years ago, when the pow­er­ful Greeks were a force in the Land of Israel. Rebe­ka and her fam­i­ly were plan­ning on mov­ing to Athens so that her father could take advan­tage of trad­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and so that the chil­dren of the fam­i­ly could receive a supe­ri­or edu­ca­tion. In their hur­ry to pack their belong­ings and be ready to leave with the car­a­van, they lost a pair of fine­ly wrought gold earrings.

The ear­ring Bec­ca finds con­nects her with Rebe­ka of long ago and teach­es her more about the his­to­ry of her peo­ple in their joint home­land. Mod­ern Bec­ca from the Unit­ed States and ancient Rebe­ka from Israel share more than just their name; they share a his­to­ry, a peo­ple, and a land.

Illus­tra­tions show dif­fer­ences between then and now, link­ing the past and the present in an engag­ing way. Through both text and image, chil­dren will learn that some trou­bles — but also some joys — are uni­ver­sal and unchang­ing; chil­dren have been grap­pling with some of the same issues for untold generations.

An author’s note goes into fur­ther detail about Tel Mare­sha at the Beit Guvrin Nation­al Park in Israel and the Dig for a Day pro­gram run by the site. The author reminds us that the keys to Jew­ish his­to­ry — in this case, the Mac­cabee rebel­lion, which led to the hol­i­day of Hanukkah — are found in archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions and explo­rations. She also tells us that the sto­ry is based on a true inci­dent: a gold ear­ring was unearthed by a ten-year-old girl at Tel Mare­sha and is cur­rent­ly part of the col­lec­tion at the Israel Museum.