The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction

by Elizabeth R. Baer

First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the golem and traces the history of the golem legend across modern pre- and post-Holocaust culture. In five chapters, The Golem Redux examines the different purposes for which the golem has been used in literature and what makes the golem the ultimate text and intertext for modern Jewish writers.

Baer begins by introducing several early manifestations of the golem legend, including texts from the third and fourth centuries and from the medieval period; Prague’s golem legend, which is attributed to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew; the history of the Josefov, the Jewish ghetto in Prague, the site of the golem legend; and versions of the legend by Yudl Rosenberg and Chayim Bloch, which informed and influenced modern intertexts. In the chapters that follow, Baer traces the golem first in pre-Holocaust Austrian and German literature and film and later in post-Holocaust American literature and popular culture, arguing that the golem has been deployed very differently in these two contexts. Where prewar German and Austrian contexts used the golem as a signifier of Jewish otherness to underscore growing anti-Semitic cultural feelings, post-Holocaust American texts use the golem to depict the historical tragedy of the Holocaust and to imagine alternatives to it. In this section, Baer explores traditional retellings by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel, the considerable legacy of the golem in comics, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and, finally, “Golems to the Rescue” in twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of film and literature, including those by Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, and Daniel Handler.

By placing the Holocaust at the center of her discussion, Baer illustrates how the golem works as a self-conscious intertextual character who affirms the value of imagination and story in Jewish tradition. Students and teachers of Jewish literature and cultural history, film studies, and graphic novels will appreciate Baer’s pioneering and thought-provoking volume.

Genres: Nonfiction, Judaism, History

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth Baer is a Research Professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota. Baer holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Manhattanville College, a master’s degree in English from New York University, and a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University. Her scholarly work spans the fields of history, religion, pedagogy, literature, and women’s studies. Baer has lectured, traveled, and taught all over the world including courses in Germany, the Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Namibia. She has also garnered major awards including a Bush Foundation Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholar Award, a Pew Scholarship, and a fellowship at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. A leitmotif of Professor Baer’s scholarship is the tenacity with which she investigates important and difficult issues such as sexual violence in the Holocaust and genocide in Rwanda. Her focus is social justice and the role of literary texts in achieving such justice.

Reviews

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book that offers both a brief history of the golem and an analysis that takes the Holocaust into consideration when looking at more recent iterations of the figure. Baer deftly discusses some early filmic treatments and various modern books, all as examples of intertextuality concerning the golem. This is a meaningful book that treats a popular culture figure that continues to appear on television as well as in fictional media. It has a poignant history and this is an ideal book to explore that aspect. I wrote a blog post on it as well: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Stu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid piece of literary criticism examining how different authors have built upon the golem motif through the twentieth century and into the millenium. Baer gives special attention to the impact of the Holocaust on postwar golem stories and how (mostly) Jewish authors, including Nobel laureates Elie Wiesel and Isaac Bashevis Singer as well as Pulitzer winner Michael Chabon, have woven the golem into their treatment of Jewish life after the Shoah. Baer makes good use of postmodern literary theory here, but is mindful of the broader appeal of her work and takes pains to define more technical terms and methods of approaching these texts.

If anything, Baer is too thorough in her analysis. She recounts plot points in great detail, often at the expense of examining themes. This may be a necessary evil, but the reader may feel like they are reading Cliffs Notes from time to time. Ironically, Baer has excluded some of the more familiar treatments of the golem, including David Wisniewski's Caldecott-winning children's book and I. L. Peretz's influential Yiddish version of the story. Considering that Baer does such a good job covering alternative literature, including graphic novels and television, these omissions are curious.

In sum, Baer's work is indispensible reading for anyone interested in the golem, and it is highly recommended for readers (and authors) interested in tying fantastic elements with brutal reality. For more general readers, however, Baer's lengthy plot recapitulations may prove slow going.

[Bram · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't imagine that there's a better analysis of the use, misuse and overuse of the golem legend in both classic and contemporary literature. Highly recommended for all nerds of clay.

[Adam Hare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounding up from 3.5.

Basically a short survey and summary of literature featuring the golem, from its origin story through about 2009. Baer sometimes offers substantive analysis on major themes, but the focus is on plot summaries in the case of the later works.

I found the tone a bit odd. It’s largely scholarly, but Baer is a little too self-indulgent and binary in her assessments for my taste. Although she rightfully points out antisemitic themes in Meyrink’s Der Golem, she devotes about a paragraph to differing viewpoints (which she dismisses), skipping over Meyrink’s reverent depiction of a rabbi and never mentioning his daughter (the protagonist’s eventual borderline-angelic love interest). Similarly, she frequently describes the humor or enjoyment she got out of modern adaptations with little criticism. I would’ve appreciated a more even approach and more synthesis—what about this adaptation worked and what didn’t, especially compared to other adaptations?

I think this would’ve benefited from a concluding chapter tying together the major themes and evolutions of the story. Specifically, I think an exploration of shift in setting from Prague to New York would’ve been fascinating. All depictions written before WWII are set in Prague, as are all of the modern novels set in the 1600s. Almost without exception, post-Holocaust depictions are centered in New York (in some cases, with the original golem having been moved there to prevent its capture by Nazis). Surely this isn’t coincidence. Why is it that almost all of these tales are set in cities, and what about the character of these two in particular has shaped them?

Baer sticks pretty closely to explicit adaptations as well, with just a little time spent on Superman and other comic book heroes with similar attributes. I’d be interested to hear her opinion or analysis on these more tenuous appropriations—to what degree can robots like Ultron be read as golems? After all, the term “robot” came from a Czech play that debuted in Prague around the same time as many of the cornerstone works she discussed.

I found this book via Jacob Geller’s video essay: https://youtu.be/pUBVSH6hBvY?si=Cyhgl...

[Joshua Glucksman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In literature and folklore, the significance and the fascination of golems—from Rabbi Loew’s to Victor von Frankenstein’s—lay in their soullessness, in their tireless inhuman strength, in their metaphorical association with overweening human ambition, and in the frightening ease with which they passed beyond the control of their horrified and admiring creators. But it seemed to Joe that none of these—Faustian hubris, least of all—were among the true reasons that impelled men, time after time, to hazard the making of golems. The shaping of a golem, to him, was a gesture of hope, offered against hope, in a time of desperation. It was the expression of a yearning that a few magic words and an artful hand might produce somethingone poor, dumb, powerful thing—exempt from the crushing strictures, from the ills, cruelties, and inevitable failures of the greater Creation. It was the voicing of a vain wish, when you got down to it, to escape . . . into the mysterious sprit world that lay beyond” (150, from Michael Chabon)

[Samuel Goldberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting and thorough examination of Golem literature. I did find that the chronology of chapters was a bit off, though, with stories jumping around instead of the whole thing being chronological (there’s a lot of talk about how different Golem stories relate, but not as much about the general timeline of how the Golem is seen over the years past the 1920s).

While the breadth of stories is impressive, many seem to be summarised for far longer than they needed to be, while others are barely acknowledged or skipped entirely. Despite the Golem’s prevalence in gaming, there is barely a reference to either pen and paper RPGs or video games where Golems have become just as frequent as vampires and werewolves. Similarly, the book gives an abbreviated discussion of one X-Files episode, ignoring the second Golem story in the series.

Certainly worth reading for those who want to delve deeper into the history of the Golem.

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. Really engaging from the start. Very helpful research.

[Wren Worthington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and informative but I wasn't surprised to find out the author is a professor bc the writing style sure is dry and academic.