After ten years in Paris, Galal returns to Cairo, where he finds a society in transformation. Egypt is Galal's home, but he feels he no longer belongs there. He is caught between his two identities: his Jewish mother's family are cosmopolitan business people, while his father's family are rural farmers from the Delta.
Kamal Ruhayyim paints an uncompromising portrait of an older generation dictating how their children live and love. Menorahs and Minarets is the concluding part of Ruhayyim's compelling trilogy.

In the third part of Kamal Ruhayyim's trilogy, Galal, the son of a mixed Jewish/Muslim family returns to Egypt after ten years in Paris. What he finds is a society in flux, yet still stifled by convention. As his sense of alienation increases, Galal searches for a way to put down roots in a society where he feels he no longer truly belongs, as he struggles with his confused relationships with his extended family: Jewish cosmopolitan businessmen on one side and Muslim rural farmers on the other.
Ruhayyim paints an uncompromising portrait of the rigid traditions, passed on from generation to generation, that reach into the most intimate areas of peoples' lives, as family elders curb or otherwise circumscribe how the younger generation lives and loves.