Read in Judith Merril’s The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy, 1956.
A sweet little story in which an elderly, retired Jewish couple sitting on their porch are paid a visit by an android, built by a scientist hell-bent on world domination, and whom they decide is a Golem from Jewish lore.
It’s not clear why he chooses their front porch to begin this mission, or why his creator thought he could take over the world whilst being unable to withstand a slap from an octogenerian, but those aren’t really the point, which is simply that this is a nice story about evil intent and technology floundering in the face of good old fashioned homely niceness. If you want a more erudite review of the story click here, although I’m not sure the young Avram Davidson was doing anything more than simply bringing together androids from SF with golems from Jewish lore, and the likes of Frankenstein’s monster from previous tales.
