The Golem

"The rabbi of Prague made the Golem alchemically, by writing the unspeakable word of “G*d” on his forehead. The Golem was a giant who defended the Jews from anti-semites. He fell in love with the rabbi’s daughter, Esther, and went on a destructive rampage when he was denied. The rabbi erased the word from his forehead and the Golem broke into pieces, some of which are still kept under lock and key in the attic of the synagogue in the Prague ghetto – which the Nazis intended to make into the museum of a vanished race when they killed all the Jews. Meyrink foresaw the coming catastrophe and the renewed usefulness of the Golem. He wrote other prophetic books, one of which is about an apocalypse brought about by burning fires in the oil and gas pipelines under the Gulf of Mexico. For one, he’s big and brutal – just like the dumb angry mobs that used to attack the Jews. He doesn’t shy away from knocking heads together and tramping on them. The Jews needed something supernatural, but popular, to give them hope in those dark witch-burning ages of the 16th century. The Golem is also mostly robot, created by a cabbalist rabbi who got his secret knowledge by occult means – which meant that wisdom and book-reading were the ghetto-dwellers’ best chance out of the shithole that was Europe. The common people, who toiled for a living, wanted something practical from their scholars. Of course, the Golem is a sweet robot that didn’t help much. He also had human feelings, a flaw his maker didn’t foresee. Jews continued to be persecuted for a few more centuries after the Golem was destroyed, and they are not out of the woods yet. The Golem also inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , and all robots with feelings since, like the ones in Battlestar Galactica . I didn’t check, but there are probably Jews in Battlestar Galactica . The producers probably are, because Hollywood, since the beginning, was the work of Jews who fled Europe and were very familiar with the Golem story. Meyrink’s novel is just one version of it, there are dozens. But I like it best because Meyrink was a mystic. He really gives you the feeling that he gets his info through super-secret channels. The chill of suspense, and the suspicion that the world of the tale is more real than the one you’re in when you’re reading it. The best stories have this effect of making the world seem strange when you’re done reading or watching."