This article examines some of the constituent elements of an often metaphysical "Jewish angst" or "Jewish toska" found in the Yiddish language drama "The Golem" (Der goylem, 1921). In this masterpiece by Russian Jewish writer H. Leivick, the renowned man-made clay giant clay of ancient Kabbalah legend, is the creature of sixteenth-century Rabbi Loew, the Maharal of Prague, and becomes an emblem of Jewish melancholic nostalgia. Such toska is directed simultaneously at the ontologically distant Creator, supremely unattainable, and at the equally unreachable messianic era. The Golem's sense of estrangement from his own existence, explored here in tandem with Leivick's biography, ultimately renders him a personification of nostalgia itself.
University of Genoa, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-6957-0170
Chapter Title
Nostalgia and Creaturality in H. Leivick’s Тhe Golem
Authors
Laura Quercioli Mincer
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.04
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
Book Subtitle
Case Studies from Russian and Russian-Jewish Culture
Editors
Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
194
Publication Year
2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4
ISBN Print
978-88-6655-821-7
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-6655-822-4
eISBN (xml)
978-88-9273-384-8
Series Title
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
Series ISSN
2612-7687
Series E-ISSN
2612-7679