While celebrating her brother's Bar Mitzvah on Coney Island, nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin disobeys by going off on her own, leaving her cousin Ana, a recent immigrant, alone.

While Rebecca Rubin helps her building's ailing superintendent take care of his homing pigeons, she puzzles over what to do with the Christmas centerpiece her teacher insisted she make but which has no place in her Jewish home.

Nine-year-old Rebecca Rubin eagerly helps her cousin Ana, newly arrived from Russia, to adjust to life in New York City, but when their teacher says the two must sing together at a school assembly, Rebecca worries that her big moment will be ruined.

In early 1900s New York City, miserly Scroogemacher, a waistcoat factory owner, is visited by the Rabbis of Hanukkah Past, Present and Future and learns the value of carrying on Jewish tradition. Includes glossary of Yiddish terms and historical notes.