Golem

File:Prague-golem-reproduction.jpg

A Prague reproduction of the Golem.

Un golem (Template:IPAc-en; in ebraico גולם‎) è, nella mitologia ebraica e nella tradizione aneddotica della kabbalah un essere animato antropomorfo che viene creato magicamente interamente dalla materia inanimata (specificamente argilla o fango). La parola venne usata per fare accenno ad un materiale amorfo e informe nei salmi e in alcuni scritti del medievo. La più famosa narrativa del Golem coinvolge Judah Loew ben Bezalel,un rabbino di Praga del tardo 16° secolo. Vi sono molti racconti differenti su come il golem venne portato in vita e in seguito controllato.

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Jonathan Stroud's children's fantasy book The Golem's Eye centers on a golem created by magicians in an alternate London. The story depicts the golem as being impervious to magical attacks. The golem is finally destroyed by removing the creation parchment from its mouth.

In Byron L. Sherwin's 2006 novel The Cubs and the Kabbalist, rabbis create a golem named Sandy Greenberg to help baseball's Chicago Cubs win the World Series.

In 2009, horror writer Edward Lee released the novel Golemesque, later retitled The Golem when released in mass market paperback form in which corpses are transformed into golems via mystic rites performed by a satanic sect of Kaballah and by covering the bodies with special clay taken from the banks of the Vltava river in the Czech Republic.

In 2010, medieval mystery author Jeri Westerson, depicted her version of a golem terrifying the streets of fourteenth century London in the third book of her Crispin Guest series, The Demon's Parchment.

In the 2013 Helene Wecker novel The Golem and the Jinni, the golem is a female creature named Chava who is brought to life by a tormented scholar who practices dark Kabbalistic magic.

In the 2014 Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman novel The Golem of Hollywood, the golem of Prague comes to 21st century Los Angeles to exact justice on a serial killer. Through a parallel mythological narrative the creation of the Golem is linked to the story of Cain and Abel.

The manga (and later anime adaptation) Soul Eater features golems as giant automatons, made of earth and fueled by magic. Shown as having the word 'emeth' inscribed on their bodies.

Daniel Handler's 2002 novel Watch Your Mouth explores the possibility that a modern-day wife and mom is creating a golem in the basement of her family home. Publishers Weekly wrote of the book: "After the opera-melodrama's weird but tantalizing climax, involving death and the golem myth, the novel actually recovers its narrative balance as the psychologically scarred Joseph turns to New Age recovery paperbacks, which replace opera as Handler's satiric model."

In the 2016 novel 'The Omega Junction' by Alan Scott and Vincent Stevens, a spiritually petitioned entity identified as a Golem appears during a fictional war between Israel and Palestine.

Appearances in film and television

• Inspired by Gustav Meyrink's novel was a classic set of expressionistic silent movies (1915–1920), Paul Wegener's Golem series, of which The Golem: How He Came into the World (also released as The Golem, 1920, USA 1921: the only surviving film of the trilogy) is especially famous. In the first film the golem is revived in modern times before falling from a tower and breaking apart.
• Also notable is Julien Duvivier's Le Golem (1936), a French/Czechoslovakian sequel to the Wegener film.
• A golem had a main role now in the color 1951 Czech movie Císařův pekař a pekařův císař released in the US as The Emperor and the Golem.  In The Emperor and the Golem, the shem used to activate the Golem had the form of a small ball placed in his forehead.
• In Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, Golems are derived from golems in Jewish mythology; early forms of a clay robot, supposedly awakened by a spell or priestly words to do people's bidding.
• A 1966 British/American film entitled It!, starring Roddy McDowall, was about the Golem of Prague of Judah Loew.
• A 1995 Episode of Gargoyles The Golem of Prague figures prominently in "Golem",(Season 2, episode 27) One of the characters trying to re-animate it is a descendant of Rabbi Loew.
• A 1996 episode of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest titled "Rock of Rages" (Season 2, episode 28) centers on the Quest team journeying to the Czech Republic to help translate an artifact that's supposed to be the key to controlling a Golem. They run afoul of an ex-KGB operative who's determined to reactivate the Golem to overthrow the government.
• A 1997 episode of Chris Carter's television series The X-Files, called "Kaddish" (S4E15), was focused on golems. The plot involved a Jewish man dying from an anti-Semitic attack. After being resurrected by his fiancée, he kills the men who murdered him. A golem-like creature can also be seen in the 1999 episode "Arcadia" (S6E15) and the 2016 episode "Home Again" (S10E4).
• A 1997 episode of Extreme Ghostbusters features a golem, created by the son of a rabbi after their synagogue was vandalized by an anti-Semitic gang.
• In 2006, the "Treehouse of Horror XVII" episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons featured a male and a female golem in the segment "You Gotta Know When to Golem". The two characters were voiced by Richard Lewis and Fran Drescher.
• In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 black comedy war film Inglourious Basterds, Eli Roth's character Sgt. Donny Donowitz is referred to by German soldiers as a golem. Adolf Hitler reacts with fury when informed by an officer of the myths surrounding this certain foe.
• Golett and Golurk are two Pokémon whose creation was inspired by the golem and debuted in the game Pokémon Black and White, released in Japan in September 2010.
• In 2012, two back-to-back episodes of the children's horror series R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series featured a golem. The two-part episode, "The Golem" (S3E10&11), tells a story of a golem that was raised by a ved'ma during the second world war to protect a small, Russian village from German soldiers. The ved'ma, named Nadia, keeps the golem dormant thereafter, but as she grows weak on her deathbed, she finds herself no longer able to keep the golem dormant. The golem resurrects and begins terrorising the Russian village it once saved. Nadia's grandchildren, Jeremy and Bonnie, visit the village and lay the golem to rest for good. Jeremy achieves this by blowing a few of his grandmother's ashes onto the golem.
• In 2013, the fantasy/horror series "Sleepy Hollow" episode "The Golem" has a Golem which was made by Jeremy Crane (or Henry Parish/The Horseman of War) when he was beaten at his "Foster Care" home. When Jeremy bled onto the Golem he gave it life and killed his master's enemies. After Jeremy has supposedly died, the Golem was trapped in "Purgatory" until it woke up and started killing the coven which killed Jeremy. The Golem was finally stopped when Jeremy's father, Ichabod, killed the Golem with his blood as Golems can only be stopped by injecting the master's or a relative of the master's blood.
• In 2013, the fantasy/horror series Supernatural episode "Everybody Hates Hitler" (S8E13) features a golem that is used by a secret association of rabbis.; The show explains that the golem has been a protector for the Jewish people for years, especially in times of war or genocide. Specifically, this golem, created by the Judah Initiative during the Holocaust, is being used to fight a society of Nazi necromancers called the Thule Society. Unlike most golem, it can speak and frequently voices its disapproval of the fact that its new master is not an observant Jew.
• In Shonen Jump's Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal; the main protagonist Yuma Tsukumo, uses a monster card known as Gogogo Golem in his deck.
• In 2014 in the Grimm S04E04 a Golem was called upon by a Rabbi to protect his nephew but it starts killing everyone who scared the boy.
• A 2016 American fantasy film Warcraft features a golem.
• In 2010, a TV series called "Sherlock" mentioned golem in Se:1 Ep:3.

Games

Golems appear in the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (first published in the 1970s), and the influence of Dungeons & Dragons has led to the inclusion of golems in other video games and in tabletop role-playing games.

• The 1995 Cyberdreams computer game adaptation of the Harlan Ellison story, "I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967), features a golem which must be summoned to free prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.
• Metroid Prime features a boss fight against a golem-like monster named Thardus, who consists of several large rocks animated by Phazon radiation.
• In Clash of Clans, a freemium mobile MMO strategy video game, Golem is a troop with a lot of hit points. When killed, it splits into two smaller units called Golemites.
• In the MMO, Guild Wars M.O.X. the golem, the brainchild of a maverick Asuran inventor named Zinn. Golemancers are Asuran technicians that are responsible for the building, design, maintenance, and usage of the Golems. They seem to be equal parts of both magic and technology.
• In World of Warcraft, golems are portrayed as large, human-like machines that are carved out of various different materials like marble, obsidian etc. They mostly serve as foes to the players, but some are capable of both speech and friendship.
• In Terraria there is a boss called Golem, it can be summoned in the Altar of the Jungle Temple in the post-Plantera Harmode, although, it's aggressive and hostile. When Golem's stone head has taken full damage, his head leaves the body and reveals his true form.
• In 'Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption' during the quest Defeat the Golem, Wilhelm and Christof must kill the Golem of Prague in the Jewish quarter, who went mad and killed the Rabbi.
• In Minecraft, there is a neutral mob called an Iron Golem that, when it spawns naturally, protects villagers from hostile mobs. A mob called a Snow Golem can be created by the player, whom it protects by throwing snowballs.
• Pokémon features several creatures based on golems, notably the legendary Pokémon Regirock, Regice, Registeel, and Regigigas, and a Pokémon with a striking resemblance to the Prague Golem known as Golurk. The Pokémon that's actually named "Golem" and its previous evolutions are not actually golems, but are closer to silicon-based life forms.
• The 2016 Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is set in Prague and features a section of the city which is nicknames "Golem City", being a ghetto for mechanically augmented people. The augmented where placed in isolation after an event in which many of them suffered a breakdown and turned on "normal" humans; this most likely led to the place's nickname, as the "golem that turned on its master".
• The Dragon Quest series features enemy golems, notably the Gold Golem, which drops a great deal of gold currency when defeated.

See also

• Czech folklore
• Frankenstein
• Homunculus
• Prometheus
• Pygmalion
• R.U.R.
• The Gingerbread Man and Kolobok (edible "golems")
• Talos
• Galatea (mythology)
• Pinocchio
• Artificial intelligence

References

Template:Reflist

Further reading

• Elizabeth R. Baer, The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction , Detroit, MI, Wayne State University, 2012. ISBN 0814336264
• Emily B. Bilski, Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art, New York, The Jewish Museum, 1988. ISBN 978-0873340496
• Chayim Bloch, The Golem: Mystical Tales of the Ghetto of Prague (English translation from German. First published in 'Oestereschischen Wochenschrift' 1917), New York, Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1987. ISBN 0833400258
• Ben Zion Bokser, From the World of the Cabbalah , New York, Kessinger, 2006.
• Matei Chihaia, Der Golem-Effekt. Orientierung und phantastische Immersion im Zeitalter des Kinos, Bielefeld, transcript, 2011. ISBN 978-3-8376-1714-6
• Michel Faucheux, Norbert Wiener, le golem et la cybernétique, Paris, Editions du Sandre, 2008.
• Geoffrey Dennis, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, Woodbury (MN), Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007. ISBN 0-7387-0905-0
• Gershon Winkler, The Golem of Prague: A New Adaptation of the Documented Stories of the Golem of Prague, New York, Judaica Press, 1980. ISBN 0-910818-25-8
• Arnold L. Goldsmith, The Golem Remembered 1909–1980: Variations of a Jewish Legend, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1981. ISBN 0814316832
• Mosche Idel, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid, Albany (NY), State University of New York Press, 1990. ISBN 0-7914-0160-X
• Yudl Rosenberg, The Golem and the Wondrous deeds of the Maharal of Prague (first English translation of original in Hebrew, Pietrkow, Poland, 1909), Yale University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-300-12204-6
• V.V. Tomek, Pražské židovské pověsti a legendy, Prague, Končel, 1932. Translated (2008) as Jewish Stories of Prague, Jewish Prague in History and Legend. ISBN 1-4382-3005-2.

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Collegamenti esterni

• rabbiyehudahyudelrosenberg.com
• Background on the Golem legends
• yutorah.org
• Historical figures in the golem legends
• Essay about the golem and Jewish identity

Fonti

• Voce Golem di Wikipedia in inglese (base per questa voce)

Indice Alfabetico