{"id":128909,"date":"2022-12-06T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T14:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=128909"},"modified":"2022-12-25T18:46:24","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T16:46:24","slug":"lbh_wise_men_of-chelm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/lbh_wise_men_of-chelm\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wise Men of Chelm: The Unfair Shaming of a Jewish Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no wise man whose wisdom is as famous as the foolishness of Chelm, with the exception of the wisdom of King Solomon<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Yiddish writer Eliezer Bloom, a native of Chelm<\/p>\n

The most famous story about the foolishness of the wise men of Chelm, and the one story that appears in every book about them, tells of how the town\u2019s men attempted to move their neighboring mountain. Years after the town\u2019s founding, as the people of Chelm married and raised children, the community eventually became overcrowded with young and old alike. Despite the rumors concerning their questionable mental capacity, the Chelmites realized correctly that their town had no choice but to expand as the population grew. There was a problem, however: the adjacent mountain was preventing the town from spreading out naturally.<\/p>\n

For seven days and seven nights Chelm\u2019s residents deliberated over the best way to solve the issue, until they decided to simply push the mountain out of the way. The next day, all the townsmen rallied together and gathered at the foot of the mountain to begin pushing with all their might. As the sun beat down on their toiling bodies, they became hot and sweaty, eventually removing their coats and leaving them in a big pile. Thieves who happened to be passing by noticed the pile of coats and without hesitating made off with the whole lot. When the people of Chelm finished their day\u2019s work of pushing their mountain they turned back to survey the scene. With the pile of coats nowhere to be seen, they concluded that the mission had been a success and that the mountain had been pushed so far that their coats were no longer visible.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The city of Chelm expands. This is the version I read as a child: The Wise Men of Chelm<\/em>, collected and adapted by Nurit Yuval. Illustrations: Dani Kerman. Inbal Publishers, 1986<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those who came across the humorous tales of Chelm as children could be forgiven for thinking that Chelm was a place of legend, a kind of Jewish Atlantis populated by Jewish fools. Yet a bit of historical research reveals that Chelm is not a fictitious place at all, but rather a very real location with an extensive and rich Jewish history.<\/p>\n

The Jewish community in the town of Chelm in southeastern Poland prospered for over five hundred years. Its representatives were even quite active in the “Council of Four Lands” (Va\u2019ad Arba Aratzot<\/em>), the central administrative body of Polish Jewry from the 16th century to the 18th century. From the population censuses conducted in Poland, we know that at the outbreak of World War II, there were 15,000 Jews living in Chelm, accounting for fifty percent of its residents. The Holocaust did not spare the Jews of Chelm, some of whom were murdered in the town itself, though most were sent to the Sobibor extermination camp.<\/p>\n

\"\"
An image of the “Jews’ street” in the town of Chelm, Poland. The Joseph and Margit Hoffman Judaica Postcard collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Contrary to the widespread stigma, the town of Chelm actually produced quite a few proper Torah sages. One of the most prominent was Rabbi Solomon of Chelm, who became famous for his work Merkavat HaMishneh<\/em> (or Mirkeves HaMishneh)<\/em>. According to his own testimony, Rabbi Solomon of Chelm also studied philosophy and science\u2014a rare thing in his day\u2014and he is considered one of the forerunners of the Jewish Enlightenment. In the preface to Merkavat HaMishneh<\/em>, Rabbi Solomon prided himself on his broad secular knowledge, and even called on others to study secular subjects: \u201cAnd the Bible stands wide open, \u2018She has hewn her seven pillars\u2019, and why do you not keep this on your lips, for \u2018this is your wisdom and understanding to the nations\u2019,” he wrote in reference to the seven liberal arts.<\/p>\n

\"\"
These are just a few of the Hebrew books collecting stories of the Wise Men of Chelm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indeed, the labeling of Chelm as a community of fools seems in itself to be quite silly. That is to say, it is not based on historical truth (how can it be?), nor even on a well-known group of fools who originated in Chelm. The accepted hypothesis for the origin of the mislabeling is much simpler. In his Hebrew book Mila Be\u2019Sela<\/em> (“Word in Stone”) writer and linguist Uri Sela writes: \u201cIn the Slavic languages, \u1e25olem<\/em> means fool. And since the pronunciations of \u1e25olem<\/em> and Chelm are similar, \u1e25olem<\/em> became the city of fools in our treasury of proverbs.\u201d In other words, an entire community was mislabeled due to a fluke of pronunciation, and that is a hard label to shake off.<\/p>\n

The inhabitants of historical Chelm were well aware of the funny (in their opinion, misguided) stories concerning their intellect\u2014or rather their amusing lack of it. In fact it seems they actively tried to dispel the stigma – the authors of the Chelm pinkas<\/em> (the community ledger) recall their town as a place that was home to a great number of scholars. According to them, immediately after the six days of creation, angels set out from the spirit world with three sacks full of souls: one sack contained the souls of fools, another sack contained the souls of the wise and a third sack held the souls of great sages. The angels flew over the cities and villages distributing just the right amount of souls from their sacks. By the time one of these angels reached the skies over Chelm, he was already quite tired and didn\u2019t notice the big tree growing on the top of the huge mountain next to it. The tree ripped open the sack containing the souls of great sages, scattering them over Chelm. And ever since then, the town has been full of extraordinarily bright and wise individuals.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The origin of the wise sages of Chelm. Illustration from The Wise Men of Chelm<\/em>, collected and adapted by Nurit Yuval. Illustrations: Dani Kerman. Inbal Publishers, 1986<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea of \u200b\u200ba city populated by fools is not an originally Jewish one. The first historical city to be burdened with this unflattering stereotype was the ancient Greek city of Abdera. Although it was one of the great centers of Greek foreign trade as well as the birthplace of the philosophers Democritus, Protagoras and Hecataeus, Abdera\u2019s citizens were known throughout Greece as being quite foolish. The Abderites were the Chelmites of the ancient world.<\/p>\n

We do not know the exact origin of the tales surrounding the intellect of the Chelmites. Similar legends about cities whose inhabitants weren\u2019t the sharpest crayons in the box were already popularized even before the Common Era. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore a question that has been troubling us since we began writing this article: Were the stories about the wisdom of the people of Chelm really intended to be meanspirited or did they have an ulterior motive?<\/p>\n

Obviously, these stories were not typical tales of heroism and sacrifice. No wise man from Chelm ever saved a princess from a dragon or defeated a cruel enemy in battle. And yet, this is precisely their strength: the stories and jokes about the wise men of Chelm are stories \u201cabout the day-to-day, about regular folk and their na\u00efve and occasionally ridiculous struggles to survive, to overcome adversity, to live”. This is how writer Adir Cohen, an expert in education and bibliotherapy, explains the humor of the wise men of Chelm.<\/p>\n

The poet and literary scholar Israel Haim Biletzky, who recorded many of the stories, writes about another aspect: \u201cThe Chelm tale is silent where its wisdom commands it to be silent. Its eyes are wide open wherever the situation requires. It is charged with life\u2019s tribulations. It is reconciliation with man and with God, it is not a clenched fist, ready for the punch. Those who are willing to, will treasure it.\u201d In other words, the next time you need a pick-me-up, instead of watching the latest light-hearted comedy or stand-up special on Netflix, how about reading a story or two about Chelm and its wise folk? It\u2019s guaranteed to make you smile<\/p>\n

And we\u2019ll conclude with a final Chelm story to brighten your day, this time about the building of Chelm itself. After the souls of the wise were scattered at the foot of the mountain, the Chelmites decided to build themselves a large and beautiful town to live in. They built their houses out of wood, cutting down the tries on the mountaintop. To transport them down the mountain, each Chelmite carried a large wooden log on his back.<\/p>\n

One day, a Jew from another city happened by the construction site and asked the residents why they did not simply roll the logs down the mountain. When the Chelmites tried out his idea, they discovered that this was the wise and proper thing to do. Once again they convened the city council and debated the proposal for seven days and seven nights. In the end they concluded that it was indeed better to roll the logs from the top of the mountain to the bottom. As soon as the decision was made, the wise men of Chelm understood what they had to do – they proceeded to carry all the logs that already sat at the foot of the mountain back up to the top, and from there they rolled them all back down.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Besides the more recent adaptations there are also classics such as the book by Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Fools of Chelm and Their History<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Fools of Chelm and Their History<\/em>, pictures by Uri Shulevitz, translated by the author and Elizabeth Shub, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973<\/p>\n

\u05d0\u05d3\u05d9\u05e8 \u05db\u05d4\u05df, “\u05d4\u05d4\u05d5\u05de\u05d5\u05e8 \u05e9\u05dc \u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05d9 \u05d7\u05dc\u05dd”, \u05de\u05e2\u05d2\u05dc\u05d9 \u05e7\u05e8\u05d9\u05d0\u05d4 30, \u05de\u05d0\u05d9 2004<\/p>\n

\u05d0\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9 \u05e1\u05dc\u05e2, \u05de\u05dc\u05d4 \u05d1\u05e1\u05dc\u05e2, \u05d4\u05d5\u05e6\u05d0\u05ea \u05db\u05ea\u05e8, 1990<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did the Jews of Chelm, a city in Poland, acquire their reputation as a “town of fools”? Could Chelm have actually been a community of great sages? We set out in search of the true story behind this odd piece of Jewish folklore\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":118203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[1832,305,1914,1536,1902],"tags2":[2749,2687,2804,2651,2833],"class_list":["post-128909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","tag-ashkenazic-jewry","tag-europe","tag-hebrew","tag-jewish-culture","tag-jewish-folklore"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Wise Men of Chelm: The Unfair Shaming of a Jewish Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How did the Jews of Chelm, a city in Poland, acquire their reputation as a "town of fools"? 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