Satan in Goray by Isaac Bashevis Singer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


From 1648 to 1658, some 100,000 Jewish people were killed in Poland during a Cossack rebellion. The Cossacks committed mass atrocities against civilians, with Jewish people among their primary targets. After this calamity, the idea began to take hold among the traumatized survivors that these events were a sign that they were on the cusp of the ultimate battle of Armageddon and the coming of the Messiah, who would lead the Jewish people back to Israel. Into this void stepped a Jewish mystic and rabbi named Sabbatai Zevi, who claimed to be the Messiah and declared that the year 1666 would be the fated year. But when he went to Constantinople in February 1666, he was imprisoned and given a choice: be impaled by a spear, be shot at with arrows (in which case if they missed, it would prove he was the Messiah), or convert to Islam. He chose the latter, gutting the religious movement and sending his followers into despair.

This is the background for Isaac Bashevis Singer‘s Satan in Goray, a dark, disturbing tale of messianic madness gripping a small town. It describes how in 1648, the Cossack’s “slaughtered on every hand, flayed men alive, murdered small children, violated women and afterward ripped open their bellies and sewed cats inside.” The survivors fled for nearby Lublin, where many were converted or sold into slavery. Goray, once known for its scholars and men of accomplishment, was deserted.

Years later, some destitute citizens return and begin to rebuild. Among them are the renowned Rabbi Benish Ashkenazi and Reb Eleazar Babad, formerly its richest member and leader, with his daughter Rechele. But the town can never return to what it was. As Singer writes, “Its best citizens had been slaughtered.” The novel details how traveling men first bring rumors to this struggling town of the coming Messiah, and then settle there to seed the growth of what would become a mass delusion that tears the town apart. Sabbatai’s followers take over the town and drive out the traditionalists. After Sabbatai’s conversion, their leaders decide that they must embrace evil in order to eventually ascend to Heaven. Poor Rechele soon becomes the center of the ensuing insanity.

Satan in Goray was Singer’s first novel, published in installments in a magazine in 1933. Its ideas about how people can so easily turn to false prophets and other charlatans for hope is still clearly relevant to our society. But the novel is never fully involving, as it is told at something of a remove. Singer may have seen this as a necessity, considering the horrific events he depicts. The novel is graphic and shocking, sort of like The Exorcist on steroids. The last section takes yet another step back, describing events with a religious writing style, as if it were a 17th century document. One character’s name, for example, is always accompanied by “may his remembrance be a blessing”.

Overall, though, this is a fascinating book. I find it sad that 90 years after it was written and more than 350 years after the events it depicts, people are still subject to believing the lies and promises of leaders who are clearly looking to take advantage of their desperation and hope.