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
Redux: 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
centre 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.
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