Reading Notes: Jewish Fairy Tales, Part B

One of the reasons I chose this unit was to learn more about the history of the golem, as told in "The Rabbi's Bogey-Man." Some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books feature golems. Interestingly enough, given that the first golem in this story ends up burning down the synagogue, Pratchett's golems form a volunteer fire brigade. Certainly this story portrays the golems in a more negative light than those of Discworld. However, golems in any world pose ethical questions, such as whether they or their maker, here Rabbi Lion, should be blamed for their actions. For example the second golem turns on the rabbi, but he may simply be fulfilling the king's judgement on the rabbi, that if he truly made a living thing he should be condemned to death. At first glance he may seem simply murderous, but he may actually be the just reward of the rabbi's arrogance. On the other hand, his desire to kill all the Jews in the name of the king could be representative of the king's actual desires. In that case, it should have been taken as a warning to the people.


Golem. Web Source: Wikipedia.

I would be very interested in telling the story from the perspective of the golems, particularly if I could do so without definitively stating whether they were alive or simply like robots. I feel especially sad for the first golem, who was trying to help the children and ended up causing great destruction and killing herself. The second one is more complicated, given his desire to kill the Jews of the city. It would be interesting to explore how his mind, if he has one, came to this conclusion and whether it was truly of his own agency and free will, or more like computer programming because of the circumstances of his creation.

Bibliography: Gertrude Landa's Jewish Fairy Tales, web source.