The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague. Review

Yudl Rosenberg’s 1909 version of the traditional Jewish folktale of the Golem transformed this story forever. The Golem is a man made by rabbis from clay and given life, usually by means of Kabbalistic practice. Rosenberg’s book became an immediate bestseller and was immensely influential. It masqueraded as an original account of sixteenth-century events, divided into self-contained stories, which centred on the “Maharal,” the maker of the Golem. “The Maharal of Prague” is another name for Rabbi Judah Loew Ben Bezalel (1525–1609). Rosenberg’s book ensured that he was best known for his fictitious role in the Golem legends, but his reputation as an important thinker of the post-Medieval period is growing. Loew developed an entirely new approach to the aggadah of the Talmud. He was also a progressive educationalist and an enlightened student of science. Far from being a practitioner of the secret arts, his reputation for mysticism rests on his translation of Kabbalistic ideas into clearly accessible terminology. In Rosenberg’s stories this historical personage is transformed into a protector of the Jewish people, whose knowledge of Kabbalah gives him superhuman powers.

An important reason for the success of Rosenberg’s book was a very strong interest in the occult, widely shared by his contemporaries, both Jewish and non-Jewish. This partly explains why this version of the ancient Golem tale transcended a Jewish audience and became widely known. The importance and influence of Rosenberg’s version is beyond dispute, which means that Curt Leviant’s translation performs a vital role in making this book available to a broader audience.

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David Oistrakh: Artist Of The People?

I belong to the generation that as students drooled over David Oistrakh’s new recordings, but then had quite a surprise when on stage we saw a dour person whose face showed so little emotion. Even more infuriating was his ability to make everything look so ridiculously easy, with technical challenges just swept aside.

This 1994 documentary from the French violinist and film-maker Bruno Monsaingeon traces Oistrakh’s life from early years spent in his native Odessa through to the time when, as a young Jew in the Soviet Union, his career was only as good as his last competition result.

He triumphed in one after another, while the Communist authorities used that success to bolster the image of their regime.That he was financially exploited by that regime is made abundantly clear in a film interview with Yehudi Menuhin, who condemns the fact that Oistrakh was forced to perform incessantly and that everything he earnt abroad was channelled back to the party machine.

The musical excerpts are historically interesting but are often in grainy black and white with indifferent sound quality, giving little evidence of his great performances. But many close-ups show a bowing technique every student should study, for it produced those incomparable long-spun passages of lyric beauty.

Oistrakh’s son, Igor, adds family touches, including the fact that his father played the violin incessantly, and before he did anything in the morning he would play an excruciatingly difficult passage, only after which he seemed content.

Lucid subtitles, when the soundtrack is not in English, provide the finishing touch to a fascinating disc.