The Truth about the Golem and the Maharal of Prague

The Golem is a legendary creature made of clay who comes to life through holy Hebrew words to protect the persecuted Jewish villagers. Learn the true history of Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague who befriended Emperor Rudolph II, Johannes Kepler and whose Kabbalistic spiritual teachings are still studied 400 years later.

Plus learn about Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem, credited with creating the first Golem, silent, lumbering and super-strong, who turns on his master.

Also, the dramatic true story of the Israeli community of Kerem Maharal, named after the famed rabbi and created by Czech Holocaust survivors who fought in Israel’s War of Independence.

And, the Golem of Rehovot, one of Israel’s first computers created in the 1960s at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The Altneuschul (Old New Synagogue) in Prague, where the Maharal served as rabbi 400 years ago. Legend has it the Golem is in the attic. Credit: Øyvind Holmstad, 2014, Wiki Commons

Holocaust survivors from Prague built the Kerem Maharal moshav in Israel, named after the famed rabbi. Credit: Zoltan Kluger, Israeli Government Press Office, 1949.

Statue of Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, erected in 1910 in Prague. Credit: Buchhändler, Wiki Commons.

Golem figurines are on sale in Prague. Credit: Michal Maňas, Wiki Commons.

Der Golem, a 1915 black-and-white silent film from Germany.

The Golem computer unveiled in 1963 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. “The old Kabbalists would have been proud,” Gershom Scholem said. Credit: Yuval Madar, Wiki Commons

NOTES:

• The Czech Brigade

• Biography of Shimshon Clara Shecht, the Czech Brigade and Kerem Marahal

• Can a Golem be counted as part of a minyan?

• Molded from Clay: The Portrayal of Jews through the Golem

• Biography of Rabbi Yehudah Leib ben Betsal’el (The Maharal)

• Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem and the Original Golem

• Golem - from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia

• The Golem in the Attic - Moment Magazine

• The Enigmatic Golem of Prague: Revealing a Legendary Mystery - Prague.org

• Golem: Mythical Creature or Historical Fact? - Chabad.org

• The Golem of Old Prague by Michael Rosen - full text

• The Golem: Legends of the Ghetto of Prague by Chajim Bloch - full text, translated from 1919 German edition

• Altneuschul (Old New Synagogue) - official website

• Moshav Kerem Maharal - official website

• Golem - Israel’s first computer from 1963 at Weizmann Institute

• The Maharal’s Robot: The High-Tech Golem of Rehovot

• WEIZAC and GOLEM: The Start-Up Nation’s Earliest Computers

• The Golem of Tel Aviv - Kerem House musical