bronx golem
2009
Hand drawn animation, music, radio documentary excerpt
Eddie Carmel was once billed as the Tallest Man on Earth by the Ringling Brothers Circus, but it is Diane Arbus’ 1970 picture, “A Jewish Giant at Home with his Parents in the Bronx, NY” that remains in the public memory. The photograph’s title evokes the Golem, one of the most striking figures in Jewish folk traditions. The clay creature is usually portrayed as mighty in height and in strength. Only Rabbis-exceptionally gifted ones-were capable of creating them (usually to protect their community). Bronx in the 40’s and 50’s was a haven for New York Jews. The tight community, with its pervasive Yiddish and cultural traditions, was not unlike the ghettos and shtetls of Eastern Europe. Carmel’s fantastical height was the result of a tumor that had developed on his pituitary gland, and not that of a Rabbi’s experiment. However, the memories he left to those who met him are as lasting and vivid as if he had, in fact, been a heroic and tragic Golem from a Jewish folk story.