25 January 2019

Does the Golem still stalk
the streets of Prague at night?

Figures of the Golem on a shop shelf beside the Old-New Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The Golem of Prague is difficult to describe. He is to be seen everywhere, yet he is said to be hidden in the rafters of a synagogue. Her lacks wisdom and intelligence, yet he is part of kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. He has no mind of his own, yet everyone seeks him out.

You are unlikely to have heard of him unless you are unaware of Jewish folklore or the legends of Prague. Yet souvenir statues of him are on sale throughout the Jewish Quarter and the Old Town.

Is he a cross between the Gingerbread Man and Frankenstein’s monster?

He was never a person, yet he is one of the most famous personalities to have walked the streets of Prague.

Indeed, you may ask, did he ever exist?

During the reign of the Emperor Rudolph II in the 16th century, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel is said to have been endowed with supernatural gifts that he combined with the four elements: fire and water were represented by his assistants, air was represented by the rabbi himself, and earth was found in the Golem. He brought these together bring to life the Golem, a sculpture moulded from the mud of the riverbed in Prague.

The story of the Golem is used to promote the best-known kosher restaurant in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Rabbi Loew created the Golem according to the kabbalah, which specified he should be made of clay from the banks of the Vltava River. Following the prescribed rituals, the giant Golem was created, and came to life when his maker recited special incantations in Hebrew.

After the incantations, the Golem awoke but would do the biddings only of his maker, which included protecting the Jews of the Ghetto. Rabbi Loew placed the Hebrew word emet (‘truth’) on the Golem’s forehead.

His purpose in life was to protect the Jews of Prague against anti-Semitic violence. To carry out his task, his master gave him a special necklace, made of deer skin and decorated with mystic signs, that rendered the Golem invisible. The Golem, who was called Josef and known as Yossele, patrolled the ghetto. It is said he could make himself invisible and call up spirits from the dead.

At first, the Golem was indistinguishable from ordinary people. He was diligent and hard-working, helping the Rabbi in his household and in the synagogue. The only thing he lacked was the ability to speak. But the Golem was regarded as a dumb klutz because he was literal-minded, could not speak and had no sechel or intellect.

He was large and shapeless, and he lived with a clay tablet in his mouth that was removed on Saturday because it was the Sabbath.

But there is a dark side to the legend. As the Golem grew stronger with each incantation, he also grew increasingly violent and is said to have gone on a murderous rampage. Some say this was due to a broken heart, but did he ever have a heart?

The Golem has given his name to a restaurant in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Golem grew stronger and stronger. Instead of heroic deeds, he became more-and-more uncontrollable and destructive. Rabbi Loew was promised that anti-Semitic violence would end in Prague once he destroyed the Golem.

One day, the Golem was found uprooting trees and destroying the rabbi’s home while the rabbi was in the synagogue singing Psalm 92. The rabbi rushed out to remove the tablet from the Golem’s mouth. Fearing the Golem could fall into the wrong hands, Rabbi Loew smeared clay on the Golem’s forehead, turning emet into met, so that the Hebrew word for truth became the Hebrew word for death and life was taken out of the giant’s body.

Rabbi Loew put him to rest in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue. The rabbi then returned and continued to sing Psalm 92 … and so, it is said, the Old-New Synagogue in Prague is the only place in the world where this psalm is sung twice.

Rabbi Loew died in September 1609, at nearly 100. A Jewish mystic and philosopher who was a leading scholar of the Talmud and kabbalah and wrote at least 22 books, he was known widely as the Maharal, a great sage.

The Golem is said to have been confined to the attic of the Old-New Synagogue in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

For hundreds of years, entry to the attic of the Old-New Synagogue was barred and the stairs to the attic were removed. Some say, however, that Rabbi Loew’s son brought the Golem back to life, and may still be protecting Prague today.

During World War II, it was rumoured that Nazi soldiers broke into the synagogue, and Rabbi Loew’s Golem ripped them apart, limb by limb.

They say the Golem, with his glowing eyes and supernatural powers, is lurking once again in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue, waiting to be called forth in times of crisis. Another rumour says that in the 1990s, the synagogue’s shamash or attendant, a man called Josef who shared the Golem’s first name, had been telling visitors he was the Golem’s great-grandson.

The synagogue receives dozens of requests each year for visits to the Golem’s attic lair, but each request is politely declined.

I visited Rabbi Loew’s grave yesterday [24 January 2019] and, following Jewish custom, I placed a prayer on paper and a stone near his grave. I visited the Old-New Synagogue too, without climbing to the attic, and I have wandered through the Jewish Quarter by day and by night throughout this week. But I have yet to see or meet the Golem.

The grave of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Who is the Child of Prague?
And how did he get to Prague?

Statues of the Child of Prague on sale in a souvenir shop in Prague (Photograph; Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The ‘Infant of Prague’ was a popular devotional statue in Ireland from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. During those decades, the statue was linked to folk customs about weddings, prayers for fine weather, and superstitions about warding away poverty from a household and a family.

One custom involved placing a statue of the ‘Infant of Prague’ outside a bride’s house under a hedge or bush in the front garden to guarantee fine weather. Some people believed the statue needed to be outside the church where the wedding was taking place, while others buried the statue in the garden. A gift of a statue of the Child of Prague was also seen as an appropriate wedding present.

Other traditions involved placing a silver coin, usually a ‘half-crown’ (2/6), under the statue inside the house as a talisman against poverty and hunger.

There is also a tradition that the power of the statue is strongest after its head has been knocked off – but this has to happen ‘accidentally.’

Throughout Prague this week, a variety of statues of the ‘Infant of Prague,’ from tiny to miniature, robed in copes of all liturgical colours, could be seen in the windows and on the shelves of souvenir and tourist shops.

But who is this Infant?

And how did he ever get to Prague?

The Infant of Prague or Child of Prague is a 16th century wax-coated wooden statue of the Child Jesus holding a golden orb surmounted by a cross. The statue is displayed in the Church of Our Lady Victorious, a Carmelite church in Malá Strana, below the slopes leading up to Prague Castle.

Pious legends say the statue once belonged to the Spanish Carmelite mystic, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and that it was donated to the Carmelite friars in 1628 by Princess Polyxena of Lobkowicz (1566-1642).

The exact origin of the statue is not known, but historical sources point to a 48 cm sculpture of the Christ Child with a bird in his right hand, now in the Spanish Cistercian monastery of Santa María de la Valbonna in Asturias, that was carved around 1340. Similar sculptures were carved throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The bird in these statues symbolises either a soul or the Holy Spirit. The statues were often dressed in imperial regalia, reflecting the aristocratic fashion of the time.

One legend says a monk in an abandoned monastery between Cordoba and Seville had a vision of a small boy telling him to pray. The monk had spent several hours praying and then made a figure of the child.

When the House of Habsburg began to rule the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1526, Bohemia developed close ties with Spain. The statue first appeared in 1556, when María Maximiliana Manriquez de Lara y Mendoza brought the image to Bohemia when she married a Czech nobleman, Vratislav of Pernstyn.

A legend in the Lobkowicz family says María’s mother, Doña Isabella, was given the statue by Saint Teresa of Ávila. María received the family heirloom as a wedding present. It later passed to her daughter, Princess Polyxena, who donated the statue to the Discalced Carmelites or White Friars in 1628.

The statue was placed in the oratory of the monastery of Our Lady of Victory in Prague. There, special prayers were said before it twice a day, and Carmelite novices professed their vow of poverty in the presence of the statue. When he heard about the Carmelites’ devotions and needs, the Emperor Ferdinand II donated 2,000 florins and a monthly stipend for their support.

The Carmelite novitiate was transferred to Munich in 1630. The Thirty Years’ War brought an end to the special devotions in Prague, and in 1631 the Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus captured Prague. The Carmelite friary was plundered and the statue of the Infant of Prague was thrown into a pile of rubbish behind the altar. There it lay forgotten for seven years, its hands broken off, until it was found again in 1637 by Father Cyrillus and placed in the church’s oratory.

One day, while praying before the statue, Father Cyrillus is said to have heard a voice say, ‘Have pity on me, and I will have pity on you. Give me my hands, and I will give you peace. The more you honour me, the more I will bless you.’

Since then, the statue has remained in Prague and has drawn many devotees from across the world.

The statue is routinely clothed by the Carmelite nuns in luxurious fabrics with imperial regalia and a golden crown, while his left hand holds a golden orb and his right hand is raised in blessing.

In 1739, the Carmelites of the Austrian Province formed a special devotion apart from their regular apostolate. In 1741, the statue was moved to the epistle side of the Church of Our Lady of Victory in Prague.

The statue is a 48 cm, wooden and coated wax image of the Infant Jesus. The surface of the wax is quite fragile. In order to protect the fragile wax surface, the bottom half below the waist is enclosed in a silver case.

Since 1788, the statue’s two raised fingers have worn two rings, as a thanksgiving gift by a noble Czech family for healing their daughter, along with its golden blond hair. Some earlier records indicate that the original wig was possibly white.

Several costly embroidered vestments have been donated by benefactors, including Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. A notable garment in the collection is an ermine cloak placed on the statue the first Sunday after Easter, the anniversary of the coronation of the statue by the Archbishop of Prague, Ernst Adalbert von Harrach, in 1655.

Pope Leo XIII approved devotion to the statue in 1896 and instituted a sodality in its favour. Pope Pius X further organised the Confraternity of the Infant Jesus of Prague in 1913, while Pope Pius XI granted the statue its first canonical coronation in 1924. Pope Benedict XVI crowned the statue for a second time during his visit to Prague ten years ago, in 2009.

The statue has a wardrobe of around 100 vestments. The clothes follow the customary colours for the liturgical seasons: Green, Ordinary Time; Purple, Lent, Candlemas and Advent; Red or Gold, Christmas and Easter; Royal Blue, the Immaculate Conception (8 December) and the Assumption (15 August).

Today, over 2 million people visit the shrine annually.

Statues of the Child of Prague on a shopfront shelf in Prague (Photograph; Patrick Comerford, 2019)