Are You A Golemist?
This interview with novelist Marc Estrin, author of Golem Songs, will probably only be of interest to readers familiar enough with the Jewish Golem myth to follow Estrin as he spins out its implications through the psychology of a "new kind of Jew," in interviewer Ron Jacobs' words, "an out-of-control potentially homicidal Jewish man in the Bronx," an amalgam of "wonderful maniacs I have known," in Estrin's. And then there's "Golemism," writ large: "No one, no nation is 'the Golem.' Golem is an idea, a disturbing myth, a strategy of self-protection at all costs, regardless of the consequences for others, and often for oneself or one's own nation. We see examples of golemism all around us, all nourished on fear, from the obvious lethality of some nations, to the manipulation of elections, to the backlash against threatening feminism, to the catastrophic overuse of antibiotics "just in case.'"
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This interview with novelist Marc Estrin, author of Golem Songs, will probably only be of interest to readers familiar enough with the Jewish Golem myth to follow Estrin as he spins out its implications through the psychology of a “new kind of Jew,” in interviewer Ron Jacobs’ words, “an out-of-control potentially homicidal Jewish man in the Bronx,” an amalgam of “wonderful maniacs I have known,” in Estrin’s. And then there’s “Golemism,” writ large: “No one, no nation is ‘the Golem.’ Golem is an idea, a disturbing myth, a strategy of self-protection at all costs, regardless of the consequences for others, and often for oneself or one’s own nation. We see examples of golemism all around us, all nourished on fear, from the obvious lethality of some nations, to the manipulation of elections, to the backlash against threatening feminism, to the catastrophic overuse of antibiotics “just in case.'”