In one shtetl, somewhere in the region of Podolia (now Ukraine) at the beginning of the 20th century, a mysterious visitor arrives. Scary in appearance, strange, mute, as if he came from another world. Among the Hasidic community living in the shtetl, a rumor spreads very quickly that the mysterious guest may be a golem – a legendary creation in human form.

Here is a contemporary Polish writer, Macie Płaza, who paints a Hasidic world and in the lines of his book revives the life of the Jewish community. The novel “Golem” is an entrance ticket to customs, beliefs and social complexity. Thanks to the depth of the book, the reader is absorbed into the Hasidic world and looks at it from the inside and not as a foreign and external observer. Despite the hermeticity of the Hasidic community, Płaza manages to bring the cocoon out of the past and bring its essence into the modern world of values.

Additional information about Maciej Płaza and “Golem”

The event will take place on June 21 (Friday) at 11:00. The author will meet the audience remotely via Zoom.

For registration: telaviv.librarian@instytutpolski.pl  

Participants of the event are invited to read “Golem” by Maciej Płaza and:

– to loan the book at the Polish Institute’s Library (Mondays 9-16 or Fridays 9-13:30)

– to loan an e-book

For loaning the books and further details about the event please contact us by e-mail at: telaviv.librarian@instytutpolski.pl

Maciej Płaza (born 1976) is a prose writer and translator with a doctoral degree in humanities. His debut volume of short stories Skoruń (“Scallywag”, W.A.B. 2015) won him the 2016 Gdynia Literary Award and the 2016 Koscielski Foundation Award. The book was also in the final of the 2016 NIKE Award and was nominated for the Gombrowicz Award. His novel Robinson w Bolechowie (“Robinson in Bolechów”, W.A.B. 2017) was awarded the 2018 Angelus Central European Literary Award. For the novel “Golem” she was nominated to the 2022 NIKE Award.