After centuries of wandering the small towns of Central and Eastern Europe, Zalman has finally been exposed by a great Hasidic Rebbe as a walking corpse, an affable zombie impersonating the living shtetl Jews around him. But when the rebbe insists that Zalman permit his soul to move on to the next world, Zalman scoffs that he is beyond redemption - and confesses by way of a tale about his long ago sins in a petty principality in Medieval Germany. There he had loved and was spurned by a beautiful Christian princess with long golden hair, before making a pact with a demon queen and cursing the princess to live out her days with monstrous deformities.

Drawing on medieval Jewish lore and the traditions of Hasidic storytelling, The Leper Princess and The Court Jew is a meditation on guilt and responsibility.