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A Novel
One World
October 2023
On Sale: September 26, 2023
Featuring: Len Bronstein
272 pages
ISBN: 059372982X
EAN: 9780593729823
Kindle: B0BZV1JRFD
Trade Paperback / e-Book
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Humor
In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being
created out of mud or clay and animated through secret
prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people
against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a
rabbi who makes a golem, and always in a time of crisis.
But Len Bronstein is no rabbi—he’s a
Brooklyn art teacher who steals a large quantity of clay
from his school, gets extremely stoned, and manages to bring
his creation to life despite knowing little about Judaism
and even less about golems. Unable to communicate with his
nine-foot-six, four hundred-pound, Yiddish-speaking guest,
Len enlists a bodega clerk and ex-Hasid named Miri Apfelbaum
to translate.
Eventually, The Golem learns
English by binge-watching Curb Your
Enthusiasm after ingesting a massive amount of LSD and
reveals that he is a creature with an ancestral memory; he
recalls every previous iteration of himself, making The
Golem a repository of Jewish history and trauma. He demands
to know what crisis has prompted his re-creation and whom
must he destroy. When Miri shows him a video of white
nationalists marching and chanting “Jews will not
replace us,” the answer becomes clear.
The
Golem of Brooklyn is an epic romp through Jewish
history and the American present that wrestles with the
deepest questions of our humanity—the conflicts
between faith and skepticism, tribalism and interdependence,
and vengeance and healing.
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