Of all the supernatural creatures in Jewish folklore, the golem is basically the only decent one: a giant humanoid built of mud or clay, always by a learned and holy man, and always in a time of crisis. The Hebrew word for “truth” is inscribed on its forehead, certain esoteric prayers and rituals are incanted and enacted, and the golem animates. Talmudic scholars, who agree on nothing, are unanimous in rejecting the notion that the golem is alive.
In an act of stoned whynotism, Williamsburg-based high school art teacher Len Bronstein decides to create a golem — the five-thousand-year-old “crisis monster” of Jewish mythology — and when he realises that he’s unable to communicate with the massive, Yiddish-speaking, rampage-machine he brought to life, Len runs to the local bodega to beg the clerk there for her help. Between Len (culturally Jewish but won’t say no to a BLT) and Miri (an ex-Hasid who loves her heritage but couldn’t live within the strict confines of her orthodox upbringing) and a night of binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Golem is brought up to date on the current climate for Jewish people. And as the creature states that he can only be summoned in a time of great threat, and Len and Miri insist that their lives are not in any imminent danger, a news report about an upcoming White Pride rally in Virginia forces the trio to consider what use a crisis monster might be put to in our times. Adam Mansbach (probably best known for his Go the F**k to Sleep series of tongue-in-cheek “children’s” books) treats this examination of antisemitism with a light and humorous touch (Len is a goofball and extremists — whether Hasidic or Supremacist — are satisfyingly lampooned); but through the memories of The Golem (who is always the same creature with an intact consciousness over time) the history of Jewish persecution is outlined. Ultimately, the question asked by The Golem of Brooklyn is: If Jews are directed to both follow the Golden Rule (what is hateful to you, don’t do to your neighbour) and to engage in tikkun olam (to repair and improve the world), how does unleashing a killing machine against one’s enemies satisfy these directives? All delivered with dick and stoner jokes and a cameo by Larry David. It’s an odd balance, but thoughtful and entertaining. I’m glad I picked this up. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Why there has not been a greater profusion of golems, given the number of extremely shitty situations in which the Jewish people have found themselves over the last fifty-seven hundred and eighty-three years, remains a mystery. But clues might be found in the literature of golems, which you can read about on the internet. In some tellings, the golem is a heroic savior. In others, he is an uncontrollable monster, a doltish brute, even a tragic lover. But perhaps we have not yet scratched the surface of what the golem means.
If I had a slight complaint it would be that the main narrative unspools alongside a series of unrelated stories — the first page begins to outline the long plot of a novel Len never got around to writing (which in the acknowledgements at the end, Mansbach explains is a novel he has never gotten around to writing), a character asks The Golem for a story and he tells of being summoned during the Babylonian Exile in order to defend against the baby-killing spirit of Lilith, Len asks Miri for a story and she recalls trying to find her way in New York as a runaway eighteen-year-old “baby lesbian” — and while these stories do add colour, there’s something unsophisticated about the way they are inserted. On the other hand, it’s probably the only way to share The Golem’s entire history — from his first appearance (after God had moulded Adam out of clay, but before filling him with the breath of life) to his last (standing amongst the thirty-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-one Jews who were shot to death by German soldiers in Kyiv in September of 1941, “the last time he appears in the folklore of the Jewish people”) — and it is The Golem’s history, his purpose and destiny, that are the interesting crux of the narrative.
“So now we’re trying to invent a superhero?”
Miri laid her fork down. “If I’ve learned anything since I left the Sassovs and joined the real world, it’s that people love superheroes.”
“Yeah, in movies. Shit, Miri — people already believe that George Soros controls the world economy and Jews have secret space lasers. You really think —” Len broke off, snarled in his thoughts. He was down to his last bite of BLT, and he was severely tempted to order another one. “You really think that would be good for the Jews?” he finished weakly.
Over the course of the novel, we are shown that Len and Miri are both good people — people who live by the Golden Rule and tikkun olam — but Mansbach does such a good job of representing the White Pride rally as a credible threat to good people everywhere, that the question of what they should do with the power in their hands is an interesting one to explore. In its details, this is a really interesting and entertaining read; not really what you might call literary, and not exactly "light reading", but I'll round up to four stars.
