Golem
Encyclopedia
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms
and medieval writing.
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel
, the late 16th century chief rabbi
of Prague
.
in Psalm
139:16, which uses the word , meaning "my unshaped form". The Mishnah
uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avos 5:9 in the Hebrew text (English translations vary). In modern Hebrew golem is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless". Similarly, its is often used today as a metaphor
for a brainless lunk or entity who serves man under controlled conditions but is hostile to him and others. "Golem" passed into Yiddish as goylem to mean someone who is clumsy or slow.
(Tractate Sanhedrin
38b), Adam
was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. However, no matter how holy a person became, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God.
Early on, it was noted that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin
65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra). He sent the man to Rav Zeira
. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the magicians; return to your dust."
During the Middle Ages
, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah
(Book of Creation) were studied as a means to attain the mystical ability to create and animate a golem, although there is little in the writings of Jewish mysticism that supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic
experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.
In some tales, (for example those of the Golem of Chelm and the Golem of Prague) a golem is inscribed with Hebrew words that keep it animated. The word emet (אמת, "truth" in the Hebrew language) written on a golem's forehead is one such example. The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א) in emet, thus changing the inscription from 'truth' to 'death' (met מת, "dead"). Legend and folklore suggest that golems could be activated by writing a specific series of letters on parchment and placing the paper in a golem's mouth.
of Chelm
(1550–1583). Moshe Idel comments, "This tradition in one form or another is the blueprint of the later legend of the creation of the Golem by Eliayahu's famous contemporary R. Yehudah Leow of Prague
."
A Polish
Kabbalist
, writing in about 1630–1650, reported the creation of a golem by Rabbi Eliyahu thus: "And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man [living] close to our time, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter [Heb. Golem] and form [Heb. tzurah] and it performed hard work for him, for a long period, and the name of emet was hanging upon his neck, until he finally removed it for a certain reason, the name from his neck and it turned to dust". A similar account was reported by a Christian author Christoph Arnold in 1674.
Rabbi Yaakov Emden (d.1776) elaborated on the story in a book published in 1748: "As an aside, I’ll mention here what I heard from my father’s holy mouth regarding the Golem created by his ancestor, the Gaon R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face."
According to the Polish Kabbalist, "the legend was known to several persons, thus allowing us to speculate that the legend had indeed circulated for some time before it was committed to writing and, consequently, we may assume that its origins are to traced to the generation immediately following the death of R. Eliyahu, if not earlier."
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel
, the late 16th century chief rabbi
of Prague
, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto
from antisemitic attacks and pogrom
s. Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor
. To protect the Jewish community, the rabbi constructed the Golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava
river, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. As this golem grew, it became increasingly violent, killing gentile
s and spreading fear. A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually turning on its creator or attacking other Jews.
The Emperor begged Rabbi Loew to destroy the Golem, promising to stop the persecution of the Jews. To deactivate the Golem, the rabbi rubbed out the first letter of the word "emet" (truth or reality) from the creature's forehead leaving the Hebrew word "met", meaning dead. The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah
of the Old New Synagogue
, where it would be restored to life again if needed. According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district
, where the great Žižkovská tower
now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic during World War II and trying to stab the Golem, but he died instead. When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found. A film crew who visited and filmed the attic in 1984 found no evidence either. The attic is not open to the general public.
Some strictly orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
(the last Rebbe
of Lubavitch) wrote that his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, told him that he saw the remains of the Golem in the attic of Alt-Neu Shul. Rabbi Chaim Noach Levin also wrote in his notes on Megillas Yuchsin that he heard directly from Rabbi Yosef Shaul Halevi, the head of the Rabbinical court of Lemberg, that when he wanted to go see the remains of the Golem, the sexton of the Alt-Neu Shul said that Rabbi Yechezkel Landau
had advised against going up to the attic after he himself had gone up. The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnyaer Z. Lieman.
Cathy Gelbin finds an earlier source in Philippson's The Golem and the Adulteress, published in the Jewish magazine Shulamit in 1834, which describes how the Maharal sent a golem to find the reason for an epidemic among the Jews of Prague, although doubts have been expressed as to whether this date is correct. The earliest known source for the story thus far is the 1834 book Der Jüdische Gil Blas by Josef Seligman Kohn. The story was repeated in Galerie der Sippurim (1847), an influential collection of Jewish tales published by Wolf Pascheles
of Prague.
All these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. It has been suggested that they emerged as part of a Jewish folklore
movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement and that they may have been based on Jewish oral tradition. There is a Hebrew source in Megillat Yuchasin (1864).
The origins of the story have been obscured by attempts to exaggerate its age. For example, Chayim Bloch's The Golem, legends of the Ghetto of Prague (English edition 1925), purports to translate a manuscript "edited about 300 years ago". But Gershom Sholem observes that the manuscript "contains not ancient legends but modern fiction", The manuscript referred to is Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg's Niflaos Maharal: Ha Golem Al Prague (Wonders of the Maharal: The Golem of Prague) (Warsaw, 1909) which Rosenberg claimed to have found in the main library in Metz. Rosenberg said that it was an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem. Wonders of the Maharal "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax", but it gave impetus to a story which had been circulating since the early 19th century. It has been said that Rosenberg was the originator of the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal.
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 gives David Gans
, a disciple of the Maharal, as a source for the story, citing his historical work Zemach David, published in 1592. In it, Gans writes of an audience between the Maharal and Rudolph II: "Our lord the emperor … Rudolph … sent for and called upon our master Rabbi Low ben Bezalel and received him with a welcome and merry expression, and spoke to him face to face, as one would to a friend. The nature and quality of their words are mysterious, sealed and hidden." But it has been said of this passage, "Even when [the Maharal is] eulogized, whether in David Gans’ Zemach David or on his epitaph …, not a word is said about the creation of a golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a golem." Furthermore, the Maharal himself did not refer to the Golem in his writings. Rabbi Yedidiah Tiah Weil (1721–1805), a Prague resident, who described the creation of golems, including those created by Rabbi Avigdor Kara of Prague, did not mention the Maharal, and Rabbi Meir Perels' biography of the Maharal published in 1745 does not mention a golem.
(1720–1797). Rabbi Chaim Volozhin
(Lithuania 1749–1821) had reports in an introduction to a Gaon book, Sifra Dezniuta (1818) that he once presented to his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, ten different versions of a certain passage in the Sefer Yetzira and asked the Gaon to determine the correct text. The Gaon immediately identified one version as the accurate rendition of the passage. The amazed student then commented to his teacher that with his clarity in this passage he should easily be able to create a live human. The Gaon affirmed Rabbi Chaim’s assertion, and said that he once began to create a person when he was a child, under the age of 13, but during the process he received a sign from Heaven ordering him to desist because of his tender age. As far as we know, the Vilna Gaon is the only Rabbi who had actually claimed that he had tried to create a Golem (all such stories about other rabbis were in every case a very late legends created long after their time). The Gaon of Vilna had also written the most extensive commentary known on the Sefer Yetzira, which shows his interest in the subject. According to the book Kol HaTor
, the Gaon had tried to create the Golem to fight the power of evil at the Gates of Jerusalem.
theme in Frankenstein
, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
and some golem-derived stories in popular culture. The theme also manifests itself in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
, Karel Čapek
's 1921 play which coined the term robot
; the play was written in Prague and while Capek denied that he modeled the robot after the Golem, there are many similarities in the plot.
is loosely inspired by the tales of the Golem created by Judah Loew ben Bezalel
. These same tales inspired a classic set of expressionistic silent movies
, Paul Wegener's Golem series, of which The Golem: How He Came into the World
(also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921: the only surviving film of the trilogy) is especially famous. In the first film the golem is revived in modern times before falling from a Tower and breaking apart. Another famous treatment from the same era is H. Leivick's 1921 Yiddish-language "dramatic poem in eight sections" The Golem
. There was a 1966 film entitled It!
, starring Roddy McDowall
, about a golem. Also notable is Julien Duvivier's Le Golem (1936), a sequel to the Wegener
film. Nobel prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer
also wrote a version of the legend. Elie Wiesel
wrote a children's book on the legend.
In 1974, Marvel Comics introduced "The Golem" as a recurring character in its Strange Tales comic book series.
As the 29th episode from the second season of Gargoyles
, Golem, first aired on December 14, 1995, depicts Goliath
, Elisa Maza
, Goliath's daughter Angela and their gargoyle beast Bronx on their "Avalon World Tour" confronting the ailing millionaire Halcyon Renard in Prague
, as the terminally ill Mr. Renard attempts to illicitly transfer his soul into the Golem of Prague to extend his existence.
Pete Hamill
's 1998 novel Snow In August includes a retelling of the story of Rabbi Loew and the Prague Golem. The 2004 novel The Golem's Eye
by Jonathan Stroud revolves around a golem. Ted Chiang
makes use of the myth of the golem in his novella "Seventy Two Letters".
Michael Chabon's 2001 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
features one of the protagonists, Josef Kavalier, an amateur Jewish magician smuggling himself out of Nazi Europe along with the Prague Golem. The theme of vengeance against anti-Semites and subsequent regret of such deeds pervades the novel, culminating in Kavalier's own drawing of a modern graphic novel centered around a golem.
Some of Terry Pratchett
's Discworld
novels have used golems as a central theme. The novel Feet of Clay
revolves around the attempts of golems to free themselves, and Making Money
describes the effect of free golems on the city of Ankh-Morpork's economy. Piers Anthony featured a golem character, Grundy, in the novel Golem in the Gears in his Xanth
series.
David Brin's science-fiction novel, Kiln People
, describes a future where humans make lower quality copies of themselves (dittos or golems) out of clay. After reaching their expiration date, the Golem's memories can be reintegrated to the original person or not. There are references to the Jewish legend such as the name of the character Yosil Maharal.
Marge Piercy's novel He, She and It
tells the story of a cyborg, Yod, who is deliberately contrasted with the Golem of Prague.
The DC comic Swamp Thing
#153, 'Twilight of the Gods' by Mark Millar
and Chris Weston
is set in an alternate history where Germany won World War II and the US President attempts to evoke a golem in order to destroy the world.
The Simpsons
episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII
" features Bart discovering the Golem of Prague in Krusty's storeroom.
The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges
famously wrote a poem named "The Golem".
The X-Files
episode "Kaddish
" features a golem-like creature.
has led to the inclusion of golems in many other tabletop and video games.
. There are several restaurants and other businesses whose names reference the creature. Strongman
René Richter goes by the nickname "Golem", and a Czech monster truck
outfit calls itself the "Golem Team".
A golem had a main role in the 1951 Czech movie "Císařův pekař" and "Pekařův císař" (released in the US as The Emperor and the Golem).
Abraham Akkerman preceded his article on human automatism in the contemporary city with a short satirical poem on a pair of golems turning human.
Composer Karel Svoboda finished his last musical
based on the legend of the golem.
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
and medieval writing.
The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew," was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in the city of...
, the late 16th century chief rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
.
Etymology
The word golem occurs once in the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in Psalm
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
139:16, which uses the word , meaning "my unshaped form". The Mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
uses the term for an uncultivated person: "Seven characteristics are in an uncultivated person, and seven in a learned one", Pirkei Avos 5:9 in the Hebrew text (English translations vary). In modern Hebrew golem is used to mean "dumb" or "helpless". Similarly, its is often used today as a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for a brainless lunk or entity who serves man under controlled conditions but is hostile to him and others. "Golem" passed into Yiddish as goylem to mean someone who is clumsy or slow.
Earliest stories
The earliest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the TalmudTalmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
(Tractate Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...
38b), Adam
Adam
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...
was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Like Adam, all golems are created from mud. They were a creation of those who were very holy and close to God. A very holy person was one who strove to approach God, and in that pursuit would gain some of God's wisdom and power. One of these powers was the creation of life. However, no matter how holy a person became, a being created by that person would be but a shadow of one created by God.
Early on, it was noted that the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin (Talmud)
Sanhedrin is one of ten tractates of Seder Nezikin . It originally formed one tractate with Makkot, which also deals with criminal law...
65b describes Rava creating a man (gavra). He sent the man to Rav Zeira
Rav Zeira
Ze'era or Zeira was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora, who lived in the Land of Israel, of the 3rd generation. He was born in Babylonia, where he spent his early youth. He was a pupil of Ḥisda , of Huna , and of Judah b. Ezekiel in Pumbedita.He associated also with other prominent teachers of...
. Rav Zeira spoke to him, but he did not answer. Rav Zeira said, "You were created by the magicians; return to your dust."
During the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, passages from the Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah
Sefer Yetzirah is the title of the earliest extant book on Jewish esotericism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah...
(Book of Creation) were studied as a means to attain the mystical ability to create and animate a golem, although there is little in the writings of Jewish mysticism that supports this belief. It was believed that golems could be activated by an ecstatic
Ecstasy (emotion)
Ecstasy is a subjective experience of total involvement of the subject, with an object of his or her awareness. Because total involvement with an object of our interest is not our ordinary experience since we are ordinarily aware also of other objects, the ecstasy is an example of altered state of...
experience induced by the ritualistic use of various letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.
In some tales, (for example those of the Golem of Chelm and the Golem of Prague) a golem is inscribed with Hebrew words that keep it animated. The word emet (אמת, "truth" in the Hebrew language) written on a golem's forehead is one such example. The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א) in emet, thus changing the inscription from 'truth' to 'death' (met מת, "dead"). Legend and folklore suggest that golems could be activated by writing a specific series of letters on parchment and placing the paper in a golem's mouth.
The Golem of Chelm
The earliest known written account of the creation of a golem by a historical figure reported a tradition connected to Rabbi EliyahuElijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Elijah Ba'al Shem was a Polish rabbi who studied under Rabbi Solomon Luria and later became the Chief Rabbi of Chełm. He was a co-signer of the Agunah laws and, according to legend, used the powers of Kabbalah to create a Golem creature. Many legends surround his life in regards to this creation...
of Chelm
Chelm
Chełm is a city in eastern Poland with 67,702 inhabitants . It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some 25 kilometres from the border with Ukraine...
(1550–1583). Moshe Idel comments, "This tradition in one form or another is the blueprint of the later legend of the creation of the Golem by Eliayahu's famous contemporary R. Yehudah Leow of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
."
A Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Kabbalist
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, writing in about 1630–1650, reported the creation of a golem by Rabbi Eliyahu thus: "And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man [living] close to our time, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter [Heb. Golem] and form [Heb. tzurah] and it performed hard work for him, for a long period, and the name of emet was hanging upon his neck, until he finally removed it for a certain reason, the name from his neck and it turned to dust". A similar account was reported by a Christian author Christoph Arnold in 1674.
Rabbi Yaakov Emden (d.1776) elaborated on the story in a book published in 1748: "As an aside, I’ll mention here what I heard from my father’s holy mouth regarding the Golem created by his ancestor, the Gaon R. Eliyahu Ba’al Shem of blessed memory. When the Gaon saw that the Golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that the Golem would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded on his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust. Nonetheless, while he was engaged in extracting the Holy Name from him, the Golem injured him, scarring him on the face."
According to the Polish Kabbalist, "the legend was known to several persons, thus allowing us to speculate that the legend had indeed circulated for some time before it was committed to writing and, consequently, we may assume that its origins are to traced to the generation immediately following the death of R. Eliyahu, if not earlier."
The classic narrative: The Golem of Prague
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew," was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in the city of...
, the late 16th century chief rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, also known as the Maharal, who reportedly created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
from antisemitic attacks and pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s. Depending on the version of the legend, the Jews in Prague were to be either expelled or killed under the rule of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor , King of Hungary and Croatia , King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria...
. To protect the Jewish community, the rabbi constructed the Golem out of clay from the banks of the Vltava
Vltava
The Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic, running north from its source in Šumava through Český Krumlov, České Budějovice, and Prague, merging with the Elbe at Mělník...
river, and brought it to life through rituals and Hebrew incantations. As this golem grew, it became increasingly violent, killing gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
s and spreading fear. A different story tells of a golem that fell in love, and when rejected, became the violent monster seen in most accounts. Some versions have the golem eventually turning on its creator or attacking other Jews.
The Emperor begged Rabbi Loew to destroy the Golem, promising to stop the persecution of the Jews. To deactivate the Golem, the rabbi rubbed out the first letter of the word "emet" (truth or reality) from the creature's forehead leaving the Hebrew word "met", meaning dead. The Golem's body was stored in the attic genizah
Genizah
A genizah is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings...
of the Old New Synagogue
Old New Synagogue
The Old New Synagogue situated in Josefov, Prague, is Europe's oldest active synagogue. It is also the oldest surviving medieval synagogue of twin nave design.Completed in 1270 in gothic style, it was one of Prague's first gothic buildings...
, where it would be restored to life again if needed. According to legend, the body of Rabbi Loew's Golem still lies in the synagogue's attic. Some versions of the tale state that the Golem was stolen from the genizah and entombed in a graveyard in Prague's Žižkov district
Žižkov
Žižkov is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Prague 8 and Prague 10. Prior to 1922, Žižkov was an independent city....
, where the great Žižkovská tower
Žižkov Television Tower
The Žižkov Television Tower is a unique transmitter tower built in Prague between 1985 and 1992. Designed by architect Václav Aulický and structural engineer Jiří Kozák, it stands high above the city's traditional skyline from its position on top of a hill in the district of Žižkov, from which it...
now stands. A recent legend tells of a Nazi agent ascending to the synagogue attic during World War II and trying to stab the Golem, but he died instead. When the attic was renovated in 1883, no evidence of the Golem was found. A film crew who visited and filmed the attic in 1984 found no evidence either. The attic is not open to the general public.
Some strictly orthodox Jews believe that the Maharal did actually create a golem. Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson , known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe among his followers, was a prominent Hasidic rabbi who was the seventh and last Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was fifth in a direct paternal line to the third Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Menachem Mendel...
(the last Rebbe
Rebbe
Rebbe , which means master, teacher, or mentor, is a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew word Rabbi. It often refers to the leader of a Hasidic Jewish movement...
of Lubavitch) wrote that his father-in-law, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, told him that he saw the remains of the Golem in the attic of Alt-Neu Shul. Rabbi Chaim Noach Levin also wrote in his notes on Megillas Yuchsin that he heard directly from Rabbi Yosef Shaul Halevi, the head of the Rabbinical court of Lemberg, that when he wanted to go see the remains of the Golem, the sexton of the Alt-Neu Shul said that Rabbi Yechezkel Landau
Yechezkel Landau
Yechezkel ben Yehuda Landau was an influential authority in halakha . He is best known for the work Noda Biyhudah , by which title he is also known.-Biography:...
had advised against going up to the attic after he himself had gone up. The evidence for this belief has been analyzed from an orthodox Jewish perspective by Shnyaer Z. Lieman.
Sources of the Prague narrative
The general view of historians and critics is that the story of the Golem of Prague was a German literary invention of the early 19th century. According to John Neubauer, the first writers on the Prague Golem were:- 1837: Berthold AuerbachBerthold AuerbachBerthold Auerbach was a German-Jewish poet and author. He was the founder of the German “tendency novel,” in which fiction is used as a means of influencing public opinion on social, political, moral, and religious questions.-Biography:Moses Baruch Auerbach was born in Nordstetten in the Kingdom...
, Spinoza - 1841: Gustav Philippson, Der Golam, eine Legende
- 1841: Franz Klutschak, Der Golam des Rabbi Löw
- 1842: Adam Tendlau Der Golem des Hoch-Rabbi-Löw
- 1847: Leopold Weisel, Der Golem
Cathy Gelbin finds an earlier source in Philippson's The Golem and the Adulteress, published in the Jewish magazine Shulamit in 1834, which describes how the Maharal sent a golem to find the reason for an epidemic among the Jews of Prague, although doubts have been expressed as to whether this date is correct. The earliest known source for the story thus far is the 1834 book Der Jüdische Gil Blas by Josef Seligman Kohn. The story was repeated in Galerie der Sippurim (1847), an influential collection of Jewish tales published by Wolf Pascheles
Wolf Pascheles
Wolf Pascheles was a Czech Jewish publisher.The son of needy parents, he gained a livelihood by tutoring in Prague and its vicinity. Then by an accident he was led to the career which made him famous, that of a seller and publisher of Jewish books. In 1828 he wrote a small book of German prayers...
of Prague.
All these early accounts of the Golem of Prague are in German by Jewish writers. It has been suggested that they emerged as part of a Jewish folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
movement parallel with the contemporary German folklore movement and that they may have been based on Jewish oral tradition. There is a Hebrew source in Megillat Yuchasin (1864).
The origins of the story have been obscured by attempts to exaggerate its age. For example, Chayim Bloch's The Golem, legends of the Ghetto of Prague (English edition 1925), purports to translate a manuscript "edited about 300 years ago". But Gershom Sholem observes that the manuscript "contains not ancient legends but modern fiction", The manuscript referred to is Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg's Niflaos Maharal: Ha Golem Al Prague (Wonders of the Maharal: The Golem of Prague) (Warsaw, 1909) which Rosenberg claimed to have found in the main library in Metz. Rosenberg said that it was an eyewitness account by the Maharal's son-in-law, who had helped to create the Golem. Wonders of the Maharal "is generally recognized in academic circles to be a literary hoax", but it gave impetus to a story which had been circulating since the early 19th century. It has been said that Rosenberg was the originator of the idea that the narrative dates from the time of the Maharal.
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 gives David Gans
David Gans
----David ben Solomon ben Seligman Gans was a Jewish mathematician, historian, astronomer, astrologer, and is best known for the works Tzemach David and Nechmad ve'naim.- Early life :...
, a disciple of the Maharal, as a source for the story, citing his historical work Zemach David, published in 1592. In it, Gans writes of an audience between the Maharal and Rudolph II: "Our lord the emperor … Rudolph … sent for and called upon our master Rabbi Low ben Bezalel and received him with a welcome and merry expression, and spoke to him face to face, as one would to a friend. The nature and quality of their words are mysterious, sealed and hidden." But it has been said of this passage, "Even when [the Maharal is] eulogized, whether in David Gans’ Zemach David or on his epitaph …, not a word is said about the creation of a golem. No Hebrew work published in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries (even in Prague) is aware that the Maharal created a golem." Furthermore, the Maharal himself did not refer to the Golem in his writings. Rabbi Yedidiah Tiah Weil (1721–1805), a Prague resident, who described the creation of golems, including those created by Rabbi Avigdor Kara of Prague, did not mention the Maharal, and Rabbi Meir Perels' biography of the Maharal published in 1745 does not mention a golem.
The Golem of Vilna
There is a similar tradition relating to the Vilna GaonVilna Gaon
Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna and simply by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, , was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries...
(1720–1797). Rabbi Chaim Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin
Chaim Volozhin was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and ethicist. Popularly known as "Reb Chaim Volozhiner" or simply as "Reb Chaim", he was born in Volozhin when it was a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
(Lithuania 1749–1821) had reports in an introduction to a Gaon book, Sifra Dezniuta (1818) that he once presented to his teacher, the Vilna Gaon, ten different versions of a certain passage in the Sefer Yetzira and asked the Gaon to determine the correct text. The Gaon immediately identified one version as the accurate rendition of the passage. The amazed student then commented to his teacher that with his clarity in this passage he should easily be able to create a live human. The Gaon affirmed Rabbi Chaim’s assertion, and said that he once began to create a person when he was a child, under the age of 13, but during the process he received a sign from Heaven ordering him to desist because of his tender age. As far as we know, the Vilna Gaon is the only Rabbi who had actually claimed that he had tried to create a Golem (all such stories about other rabbis were in every case a very late legends created long after their time). The Gaon of Vilna had also written the most extensive commentary known on the Sefer Yetzira, which shows his interest in the subject. According to the book Kol HaTor
Kol HaTor
Kol HaTor - קול התור or "The Voice of the Turtledove" was written by Rabbi Hillel Rivlin of Shklov a disciple of the Vilna Gaon . The text deals with the Geulah and describes its signs vis-a-vis an evaluation of a proposed 999 footsteps of the Moshiach’s arrival...
, the Gaon had tried to create the Golem to fight the power of evil at the Gates of Jerusalem.
Hubris theme
The existence of a golem is sometimes a mixed blessing. Golems are not intelligent, and if commanded to perform a task, they will perform the instructions literally. In many depictions Golems are inherently perfectly obedient. In its earliest known modern form, the Golem of Chelm became enormous and uncooperative. In one version of this story, the rabbi had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon it crumbled upon its creator and crushed him. There is a similar hubrisHubris
Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
theme in Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of a poem by Goethe, Der Zauberlehrling, written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.-Story:...
and some golem-derived stories in popular culture. The theme also manifests itself in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction play in the Czech language by Karel Čapek. R.U.R. stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, an English phrase used as the subtitle in the Czech original. It premiered in 1921 and introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole.The...
, Karel Čapek
Karel Capek
Karel Čapek was Czech writer of the 20th century.-Biography:Born in 1890 in the Bohemian mountain village of Malé Svatoňovice to an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father, Čapek was the youngest of three siblings...
's 1921 play which coined the term robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
; the play was written in Prague and while Capek denied that he modeled the robot after the Golem, there are many similarities in the plot.
20th and 21st centuries
In the early 20th century, the golem was adopted by mainstream European society. Most notably, Gustav Meyrink's 1914 novel Der GolemThe Golem (Meyrink)
The Golem is a novel written by Gustav Meyrink in 1914.First published in serial form as Der Golem in 1913-14 in the periodical Die weissen Blätter, The Golem was published in book form in 1915 by Kurt Wolff, Leipzig. The Golem was Meyrink's first novel...
is loosely inspired by the tales of the Golem created by Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu ha-Rav Loew," was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who served as a leading rabbi in the city of...
. These same tales inspired a classic set of expressionistic silent movies
Silent Movies
Silent Movies are 13 solo guitar compositions by Marc Ribot released September 28, 2010 on Pi Recordings.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating "For those interested in one of the more compelling and quietly provocative and graceful guitar records of 2010,...
, Paul Wegener's Golem series, of which The Golem: How He Came into the World
The Golem: How He Came Into the World
The Golem: How He Came Into the World is a 1920 silent horror film by Paul Wegener. It was directed by Carl Boese and Wegener, written by Wegener and Henrik Galeen, and starred Wegener as the golem. The script was adapted from the 1915 novel The Golem by Gustav Meyrink...
(also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921: the only surviving film of the trilogy) is especially famous. In the first film the golem is revived in modern times before falling from a Tower and breaking apart. Another famous treatment from the same era is H. Leivick's 1921 Yiddish-language "dramatic poem in eight sections" The Golem
The Golem (Leivick)
The Golem is a 1921 "dramatic poem in eight scenes" by H. Leivick. The story is a reworking of a legend of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal, a great rabbi of Prague. In the legend, he animates a golem, a being crafted from inanimate material...
. There was a 1966 film entitled It!
It! (1966 film)
It! is a 1966 horror film made by Seven Arts Productions and Gold Star Productions, Ltd. that features the Golem of Prague as its main subject. The film was made in the style of the Hammer Studios films both in sound and cinematography...
, starring Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
, about a golem. Also notable is Julien Duvivier's Le Golem (1936), a sequel to the Wegener
Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.-Stage and early film career:...
film. Nobel prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
also wrote a version of the legend. Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
wrote a children's book on the legend.
In 1974, Marvel Comics introduced "The Golem" as a recurring character in its Strange Tales comic book series.
As the 29th episode from the second season of Gargoyles
Gargoyles (TV series)
Gargoyles is an American animated series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. Gargoyles is known for its dark tone, complex story arcs and melodrama...
, Golem, first aired on December 14, 1995, depicts Goliath
Goliath (Gargoyles)
Goliath is a fictional character, and lead protagonist, in the animated television series Gargoyles, voiced by Keith David.-Overview:The Gargoyles concept began as a comedy series in the style of The Gummi Bears, although set in the modern day...
, Elisa Maza
Elisa Maza
Elisa Maza is a fictional character from the Disney animated television series Gargoyles, voiced by Salli Richardson. She is the main human character of the series, the steadfast ally of the Manhattan Clan of gargoyles...
, Goliath's daughter Angela and their gargoyle beast Bronx on their "Avalon World Tour" confronting the ailing millionaire Halcyon Renard in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, as the terminally ill Mr. Renard attempts to illicitly transfer his soul into the Golem of Prague to extend his existence.
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. Widely traveled and having written on a broad range of topics, he is perhaps best known for his career as a New York City journalist, as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York...
's 1998 novel Snow In August includes a retelling of the story of Rabbi Loew and the Prague Golem. The 2004 novel The Golem's Eye
The Golem's Eye
The Golem's Eye is the second book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy written by Jonathan Stroud.- Plot :The book begins two years after the events of The Amulet of Samarkand. Nathaniel is apprenticed to the Minister of Security, Jessica Whitwell; and is working as an understudy to the Minister of Internal...
by Jonathan Stroud revolves around a golem. Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang is an American speculative fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan.He was born in Port Jefferson, New York and graduated from Brown University with a Computer Science degree. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, near...
makes use of the myth of the golem in his novella "Seventy Two Letters".
Michael Chabon's 2001 novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a 2000 novel by American author Michael Chabon that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins before, during, and after World War II. They are a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born...
features one of the protagonists, Josef Kavalier, an amateur Jewish magician smuggling himself out of Nazi Europe along with the Prague Golem. The theme of vengeance against anti-Semites and subsequent regret of such deeds pervades the novel, culminating in Kavalier's own drawing of a modern graphic novel centered around a golem.
Some of Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
novels have used golems as a central theme. The novel Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay is the nineteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1996. The story follows the members of the City Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari.The title is a figure of speech...
revolves around the attempts of golems to free themselves, and Making Money
Making Money
Making Money is a Terry Pratchett novel in the Discworld series, first published in the UK on 20 September 2007. It is the second novel featuring Moist von Lipwig, and involves the Ankh-Morpork mint and specifically the introduction of paper money to the city...
describes the effect of free golems on the city of Ankh-Morpork's economy. Piers Anthony featured a golem character, Grundy, in the novel Golem in the Gears in his Xanth
Xanth
Xanth is a fantasy world created by author Piers Anthony for his Xanth series of novels, also known as The Magic of Xanth.-History:The name Xanth is in itself an unintentional pun, which matches the playful tone of the books...
series.
David Brin's science-fiction novel, Kiln People
Kiln People
Kiln People is a 2002 science fiction novel by David Brin. It was published in the UK under the title Kil'n People. It has the distinction of finishing second in four different awards for best SF/fantasy novel of 2002 -- the Hugo, the Locus, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Arthur C...
, describes a future where humans make lower quality copies of themselves (dittos or golems) out of clay. After reaching their expiration date, the Golem's memories can be reintegrated to the original person or not. There are references to the Jewish legend such as the name of the character Yosil Maharal.
Marge Piercy's novel He, She and It
He, She and It
He, She and It is an award-winning feminist science fiction/cyberpunk novel by Marge Piercy, published in 1991. Winner of the Arthur C...
tells the story of a cyborg, Yod, who is deliberately contrasted with the Golem of Prague.
The DC comic Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...
#153, 'Twilight of the Gods' by Mark Millar
Mark Millar
Mark Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films...
and Chris Weston
Chris Weston
Chris Weston is a British comics artist who has worked both in the US and UK comics industries.-Biography:Weston was born in January, 1969 in Rinteln, Germany, and lived in various countries as a child...
is set in an alternate history where Germany won World War II and the US President attempts to evoke a golem in order to destroy the world.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII
Treehouse of Horror XVII
"Treehouse of Horror XVII" is the fourth episode of The Simpsons eighteenth season, and the seventeenth Treehouse of Horror episode. In "Married to the Blob", Homer eats green extraterrestrial goo and morphs into a rampaging blob with an insatiable appetite; in "You Gotta Know When to Golem", Bart...
" features Bart discovering the Golem of Prague in Krusty's storeroom.
The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
famously wrote a poem named "The Golem".
The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
episode "Kaddish
Kaddish (The X-Files)
"Kaddish" is the fifteenth episode of the fourth season of television series The X-Files. Issac Luria, a Jewish man, is killed by a group of teenagers working for a racist shopowner, but one of them is soon strangled to death and the fingerprints on his neck are of Issac. Despite other factors,...
" features a golem-like creature.
Games
Golems often appear in the various editions of Dungeons and Dragons, where they may be constructed of nearly any material from wood to spider silk. The large influence of Dungeons and Dragons on video games and other tabletop role-playing gamesRole-playing game (pen and paper)
A tabletop role-playing game, pen-and-paper role-playing game, or Table-talk role-playing game is a form of role-playing game in which the participants describe their characters' actions through speech...
has led to the inclusion of golems in many other tabletop and video games.
Culture of the Czech Republic
The Golem is a popular figure in the Czech RepublicCzech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. There are several restaurants and other businesses whose names reference the creature. Strongman
Strongman (strength athlete)
In the 19th century, the term strongman referred to an exhibitor of strength or circus performers of similar ilk who displayed feats of strength such as the bent press , supporting large amounts of...
René Richter goes by the nickname "Golem", and a Czech monster truck
Monster truck
A monster truck is a pickup truck, typically styled after pickup trucks' bodies, modified or purposely built with extremely large wheels and suspension...
outfit calls itself the "Golem Team".
A golem had a main role in the 1951 Czech movie "Císařův pekař" and "Pekařův císař" (released in the US as The Emperor and the Golem).
Abraham Akkerman preceded his article on human automatism in the contemporary city with a short satirical poem on a pair of golems turning human.
Composer Karel Svoboda finished his last musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
based on the legend of the golem.