num_pages: 160
description: Seventeenth-century Poland is the scene of this extraordinary novel of religious hysteria and violence. It tells the story of the small town of Goray, which, like so many other Polish Jewish communities of the period, had been laid waste by the great Chmielnicki massacre. This pogrom, one of the worst in history, appeared to Jews all over Europe as a visitation from the Lord; to Cabbalists and mystics it portended the end of the world. The appearance of the Messiah was momentarily expected. Nor were the exhausted people disappointed, for a Messiah did appear, and his name was Sabbatai Zevi.Goray, a small Polish shtetel, was too remote for the Messiah to visit, but members of his sect did come to the town, bringing with them glad tidings that the Exile would soon end and that the Chosen People would fly off on a cloud to the Garden of Eden. There were those in Goray who doubted this, among them the leader of the town, Rabbi Benish. But once hysteria had been released, he was unable to stem the tide. No longer did the people of Goray concern themselves with everyday tasks; this transitory world, so soon to be abrogated, did not interest them. Theirs became a life of signs and portents, and the demonic sides of their natures overwhelmed the traditional restraints. Goray became a town of visionaries and psychopaths. First asceticism, and then absolute license, seized the town, for it was not the Messiah who had come, but Satan.Heroine of the novel is Rechele, daughter of one of the town’s most prominent citizens. It is the beautiful but epileptic Rechele who is chosen as the devil’s bride. Courted by his emissaries, her body is at last given over to him. He enters her as a dybbuk, and the book ends with a remarkable description of the medieval ritual of exorcism.
language: English
title: Satan in Goray
titlecomplete: Satan in Goray
genres: Fiction, Religion, Jewish, Literature, Classics, Nobel Prize, Poland, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Judaism
ratings_count: 1495
publisher: Noonday Press