The Golem of Prague

In the sixteenth century, when the Jews of Prague lived under the constant threat of violence, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the revered Maharal, is said to have moulded a giant from the clay of the Vltava's banks to protect his people. Following secret instructions, he brought the figure to life by placing in its mouth a shem, a slip of parchment inscribed with a holy name of God, or by writing the word emet, meaning truth, upon its forehead. The Golem walked, worked and guarded the ghetto, tireless and mute. But a creature of raw earth cannot be governed forever; in some tellings it grew violent, in others it had to be stilled each Sabbath. At last the rabbi removed the sacred word, erasing the first letter so that emet became met, meaning death, and the giant crumbled back into lifeless clay. Its remains, the story insists, still lie hidden in the attic of Prague's Old-New Synagogue, which no one is permitted to enter. Whether allegory of power and its limits or genuine folklore, the Golem remains the city's most enduring shadow.