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The Prague Golem, a Czech-Jewish legend

Still from the 1920s film, The Golem

The legend of the Prague Golem is one of the most well known old stories closely linked to the Prague Jewish community.

The Prague Golem was a creation of a Rabi Low ben Bacalel, who had made the Golem in order to protect the Prague Jewish community from the more violent and prejudiced Christians who oppressed Jews of the Prague Ghetto.

According to legend, Bacalel created his Golem in 1580 together with a 'sem' (a small ball which brought the Golem to life). Although Golem served his master and the Prague Jewish community well, after an accident in 1583, Bacalel decided to bury his creation and remove it from the world.

During one of Jewish celebrations, Bacalel forgot to take the sem out of Golem's forehead and, without its master's supervison, the Golem became violent and attacked the people whom he was meant to protect.

Today, the the legend of the Prague Golem is mostly known thanks to a famous Czech comedy film 'Cisaruv Pekar a Pekaruv Cisar' with Jan Werich in a leading role.

In the comedy, in 1552, the emperor Rudolf II moved the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire to Prague and the comedy is about how the emperor decides to switch jobs with the baker on a bet. Rudolf was famous for surrounding himself with charlatans and mystics and believed in the supernatural and he was one one of the first chemists. He was very interested in science and that's why he is said to have owned the Golem. Of course the movie is an improvisation around the story of the Golem.



By Ondrej Zemanec

[The story of Frankenstein is obviously plagiarised from the story of the Golem - Ed.]
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