The golem is the Jewish variant of humankind's primarily male-occupied search to create life like the gods. (A female creator and a female golem appear for the first time in Cynthia Ozick's novel The Puttermesser Papers [1996].) Scholars such as Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel showed the development of the golem idea from rabbinic through kabbalistic literature. In several mystic texts from the circle of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, including Eleazar of Worms's commentary on the Sefer Yeẓirah, we find the first real prescriptions for “golem creations.” Are these reports based on concrete experiences, and did medieval Jewish mystics really create artificial beings? Scholem explained these reports as a sort of a final ritual for adherents of the mystics’ circles. The golem would have been created only in the mind and destroyed again afterwards.

The golem films that are the subject of Maya Barzilai's volume drew on the background of these golem legends. All the golem movies were shot around the First and Second World Wars. In 1914, the golem flickered for the first time across the “demonic screens” of German silent film theaters, portrayed by Paul Wegener, who also collaborated on the screenplay of the movie directed by Henrik Galeen (Heinrich Wiesenberg). In 1943, Galeen attempted to produce an antiwar film with the golem as a fighter against the Nazis, with a screenplay he wrote with Paul Frankenberg and presented to director Fritz Lang, but the film was never made. Galeen's first golem film, from 1914, has not survived; all that remains of it is the screenplay and a short four-minute fragment. In 1917, Wegener wrote the screenplay for a new golem film that he starred in and also directed, The Golem and the Dancing Girl, which was in fact not a “real” golem film, but rather a comedy about movie stars. Unfortunately, this film, too, has been lost, and portions of the screenplay are all that survive. Finally, in 1920, Wegener shot his third and most impressive golem film: Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The golem: How he came into the world). The film combines elements of the legends of Prague and Chelm and the German legends of the magician “Doctor Faust.” Wegener's golem was undoubtedly a milestone in film history. With his excessively Faustian interpretation of Rabbi Loew's creation of the golem, Wegener strayed very far indeed from the traditional legends. Nowadays, seen by viewers with much more heightened sensitivity to antisemitic imagery, the controversial scenes probably appear much more scandalously execrable than they would have been for audiences at the time. In other sequences, though, Wegener created poetic images of a medieval Jewish ghetto that have been unsurpassed by any director since. The next golem movie, Le Golem, was shot in Prague 1936 by French director Julien Duvivier. This French/Czechoslovak coproduction was a kind of hidden propaganda film against the Nazis. The Jews are suppressed, and Rabbi Loew's successor (Charles Dorat) wakes the golem (Ferdinand Hart) to protect the ghetto. The golem became a “Jewish Superman.”

Readers looking for a general introduction to the cultural history of the golem legends, including the numerous golem novels or films, are not well served by Barzilai's study. She does not provide us with a revised overview of the history of the golem, but focuses solely on cultural images of wartime violence in Germany, the United States, and Israel. In the first chapter, Barzilai gives new and unique interpretations of Wegener's golem films. The chapter's focus is not on Der Golem’s antisemitic ambiguity and the unbelievable ending, in which the golem is redeemed by a blond Christian child, but rather the film's context in the history of the First World War.

The second chapter, on “The Golem Cult of 1921 New York,” is the product of excellent research, including on Yiddish plays. By focusing on the United States and Israel, Barzilai neglects, of course, European references that could have also fit her basic thesis. Thus, she does not mention Martin Frič’s two-part golem film Císařův pekař a pekařův císř (literally: The emperor's baker and baker's emperor, released in English as The Emperor and the Golem). Shot in 1952 in Czechoslovakia, this film has strong ties to the politics of the Cold War. Like the earlier Le Golem, it involves a palace intrigue against Emperor Rudolf and a golem. The monstrous golem, which looks like a huge gingerbread man, became the model for the golem tourist souvenirs that are widely sold today in Prague. At the end of the film the golem is rebuilt as a huge socialistic oven to bake bread for the people of Prague.

In chapter 4, Barzilai explores more of the American golem tradition, focusing on famous novels, graphic novels, and films, such as Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay (2000), James Sturm's The Golem's Mighty Swing (2001), and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009). She discusses the world of computers and cyborgs in chapter 5, though some of her survey is a bit superficial, and sometimes she overlooks the cultural background of certain works, such as Marge Piercy's He, She and It (1991).

However, the connection of the comic traditions and DC and Marvel heroes is extremely well elaborated, which explains why Barzilai also incorporates Sturm's baseball-themed graphic novel The Golem's Mighty Swing. What is surprising—when one sees the huge amount of material she presents here—is that Barzilai does not even mention Thane Rosenbaum's novel The Golems of Gotham (2002), one of the best pieces of Holocaust fiction and golem interpretations.

The third chapter somehow interrupts the American golem discourse, as Barzilai looks at the golem in Israel. This very exciting chapter could have been a book in itself. It shows here the two sides of the golem, not only as the redeemer of the Jews, but also as a dangerous all-destroying figure. The Arabs are portrayed as a golem and the British as the Sorcerer's Apprentice, who loses control of his creation: “Around World War II and Israel's War of Independence, the Hebrew press uniquely used the golem metaphor with reference to the Germans and Arabs, and this artificial creation now functioned as an unambiguous symbol of monstrous evil. Journalists representing a wide political spectrum evoked the destruction and rebellious aspects of the golem story to project the downfall of the Nazi regime or the loss of British control over the Arab League” (111).

In the United States today, the golem has become an important component of popular culture, referenced in many films. The old legends and stories have created a new myth, which is occasionally fused with the non-Jewish relatives of the golem, such as the Greek machines and the Homunculus, in films like Blade Runner. Barzilai's focus in chapters 1 and 3 on Germany and Israel is consistent, and though her argument is less convincing in the chapters on American cultural history, she still provides a wealth of material and fresh new insights.