The year is 1648. Rav Shloime Strasbourg, who has succeeded his father as the rabbi of Pulichev, travels to a family wedding in Nemirov, Ukraine, with Aharon Surkis, his ten-year-old stepson and his friend Elisha Ringel. In middle of the festivities, a Cossack army approaches, and the Jewish population, with the bride still in her wedding dress, takes refuge in the count’s castle. After the Cossacks gain entry through trickery, the trapped people heroically choose martyrdom, and only Rav Shloime’s quick thinking saves the three travelers from certain death.