NAOMI TEITELBAUM ENDS THE WORLD

Three California kids, preparing to become b’nei mitzvah, become accidental masters of a magical creature.

Naomi Teitelbaum complains to her moms about her bat mitzvah homework, but really she’s excited about the party, the presents, and the upcoming celebrations for her two BFFs. An anonymously delivered bat mitzvah gift, unwrapped, reveals a tiny clay figurine—a golem who comes alive to serve Naomi. The trio of friends make a scary discovery: Each completed task makes the golem grow. If that weren’t scary enough, Naomi’s been seeing ominous, not-quite-human strangers. She tries a bold solution, ordering the golem to go off and repair the world—fixing social, environmental, and any other problems that can be cured through the brute force means at his disposal. Unsurprisingly this plan goes dreadfully awry, but how can disaster be averted? With the help of real and supernatural rabbis, Naomi and friends save Los Angeles. There’s welcome ubiquity in the Judaism of the quest; the apparently White teens encounter multiple flavors of Ashkenazi American Judaism as well as demons and dybbuks from Jewish folklore. A 2,000-year-old lesson helps Naomi, who is passionate about justice, understand a healthy balance. The core philosophical themes are explained; some concepts that will be familiar to many Jewish readers (such as Chabad) are left for readers to gather from context.

A comforting, satisfying allegory of justice and self-care centering Jewish themes.