Podolia, 1911: one day, a stranger arrives at the shtetl. He walks with a limp, appears to be deaf and has the look of a vagrant. The tight-knit community is on the point of chasing him out, but the local tzaddik sees the spark of holiness in his eyes. Named Rafael, he settles in the shtetl and begins forming close relationships with members of this Hasidic community - and slowly, this incomprehensible, magnetic figure stirs up buried feelings and old conflicts. Is he a divine figure, as some speculate, or does his arrival presage disaster?Written in poetic prose that draws on fascinating elements of Jewish folklore and mysticism, Golem reconstructs a vanished world with a spellbinding combination of the real and the fantastical.