Then, imagine a flawlessly handsome, tall man mysteriously materializes after a surprise explosion in a tinsmith’s shop in lower Manhattan, also in 1899.
There you have the seeds of author Helene Wecker’s richly imagined fantasy about a golem (Chava) and a jinni (Ahmad). The golem, who was called into life just days before her appearance in Manhattan, is the creation of Yehudah Schaalman, 93, a discredited rabbinical student who has spent decades studying the darker arts of the Jewish tradition.
