Must Every Golem Die?

Abstract

Abstract Settler-colonial projects often produce states that eventually turn against the purposes of those who created them. We see this in the American and Boer revolts against the British and the sabotage by British settlers in Ireland and French settlers in Algeria of efforts to integrate the native populations of those territories into the British and French states. We see it also in the relationship between the objectives of European states and Zionists to end antisemitism by exporting the Jewish problem to the Middle East and in Israel’s increasingly pariah status on the world stage and the global increase in antisemitism—both accelerated by Israel’s ferocious response to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacks in October 2023. In the Jewish tradition this is the story of the golem—the legendary creature conjured by rabbinic skill and divine power to protect the Jews from their enemies in sixteenth-century Prague. At first successful, the golem became increasingly wild and eventually was put to death by the rabbi who created him out of fear for the welfare of the Jewish community itself. But not all golems must die. The key is to recognize they are not tied to their original purposes and can thus be transformed.