Tag Archives: jewish legend

The Story of the Prague Golem

Text

AG: The story goes that a rabbi in Prague was fed up with the pogroms and violence against the Jews in their ghetto. He created a man out of clay and imbued him with the word “emet” to describe god and it became a fierce protector of the ghetto. It successfully fought off violent goyim for some time, but eventually turned on its creators, and went on a violent rampage against the ghetto. It was destroyed by scratching off the ‘e’ in “emet” changing god to “death”. The ghetto in Prague was a real place that existed for hundreds of years. The Jews there had once been slaughtered by the local population

Context:

AG: I’d definitely heard the word and the general concepts all over the media since I was a kid. “Golem” is a common association for any sort of creature made out of inorganic materials. I didn’t become more familiar with the specific legend until I played the video game “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”, which includes a scenario where the Jews of a Nazi concentration camp have built a golem, and you have to help them complete it. I studied it in more detail when I took an ancient to late middle ages Jewish history class in undergrad.

Analysis:

The story of the golem is prevalent throughout Jewish culture as a protector. While some Jewish people genuinely believe in the creation of the golem, the story more serves as a lesson of how only God can create life. This belief is reflected in other Abrahamic religions as well. In Islam, it is forbidden to draw faces due to a similar belief.

The Golem

Text:

Informant: So there is this story within Jewish folktales of the golem. So, the golem within Eastern European Jewish tradition is a clay figure and… I don’t remember all the details, but… in Eastern Europe and specifically Western Russia, there are a lot of pogrom within these Jewish communities. And so in order to protect the Jewish communities this rabbi created a figure out of clay. And upon his head, he put the Yiddish word for “protector”. And so the golem grew, and was dubbed “the golem”. It went about and it protected the Jewish towns from the pogroms, and it would come home, basically, and be destroyed- not destroyed, dismantled.

Interviewer: I see. I remember variations on this story. The one you mentioned- you said it came home and was destroyed?

Informant: Yes.

Interviewer:Did you ever hear the version where it’s, like, it goes on a rampage or something? Because I’ve heard that version.

Informant: I’ve heard that version. But it wasn’t necessarily destroyed out of malice, it was… brought in and deactivated kind of. So it was meant to not be, like, forever, it was meant to help in times of woe. I’ve also heard other variations where it continues to live and becomes a part of the community, so it really depends on where you hear about the story from.

Context:

The informant is Jewish, and grew up in the United States.

Analysis:

The story of the golem very clearly reflects anxieties felt by Jewish people in Eastern Europe. It provides a way for these communities to empower themselves, while also relying on specifically Jewish culture- in the case of this account, the use of Yiddish, a language heavily associated with Jewish peoples- as a way to further that empowerment. At the same time, the solution is temporary, perhaps reflecting the more unnatural nature of the golem. As it is something created by clay, it mirrors the creation of Adam, but as the act of creation is something which God handles, it is not suited for humans to fully imitate it. So, the creations, while fitting a purpose, are not fully human, and thus are not meant to last in the same way we do- often being dismantled or destroyed at the ending of the tale for going on a rampage. Alternatively, the temporary nature of the golem could perhaps allude to the idea that it will not always be needed, and that the threats to the Jewish community which these people suffered under would not last forever.

The Legend of the Golem

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Actor
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

Context :

JH is 23 years old and from San Francisco, CA. They are a USC graduate I met a few months ago. They are a practicing Jew and heard a lot of Jewish legends growing up from their family.

Text :

“There is a pretty Jewish legend that I was always told. The legend of the Golem, which I’m probably going to butcher and my rabbi will be mad about it. It’s basically that this person made this man out of clay in order to protect his town… I think it was the rabbi who made the man out of clay. He wrote a word onto his head, I forget the word. But he was this six or seven foot tall man made of clay that was supposed to protect the town but ended up terrorizing it. He’s still in the attic of the actual place he was made, the clay man.”

Analysis :

Legends are interesting to analyze because they balance between the lines of real vs not real, and they can possibly be true. With the story of the golem, it remains a legend because although the clay man is still supposedly in the attic, it can’t necessarily be proven. People come from all over the world to see the attic, the way people would go out searching for bigfoot or the lochness monster. Originally, the golem was created to protect his people, but ended up terrorizing them. This bares similarity to the story of Frankenstein, which isn’t necessarily a legend. I’m unsure what the message of the golem is or if there even is a message since my informant didn’t fully remember the legend. Like bigfoot and the lochness monster, the golem is a legend about a large creature who ends up terrorizing humanity, leading to the humane fear of the “other”.