Wise Men of Chelm

The Wise Men of Chelm (Khelemer khakhomim) are foolish Jewish residents of the Polish city of Chełm, a butt of Jewish jokes, similar to other towns of fools: the English Wise Men of Gotham, German Schildbürger, Greek residents of Abdera, or Finnish residents of the fictional town of Hymylä. Since at least 14th century Chełm had a considerable population of Jews.

Many of the Chelmer jokes are about silly solutions to problems. Some of these solutions display "foolish wisdom" (reaching the correct answer by the wrong train of reasoning), while others are simply wrong. Some Chełm stories emulate the interpretive process of Midrash and the Talmudic style of argumentation, and continue the dialogue between rabbinic texts and their manifestation in the daily arena. The seemingly tangential questioning that is typical of the Chełm Jewish Council can be interpreted as a comedic hint at the vastness of Talmudic literature. The combination of paralleled argumentation and linguistic commonality allows the Jewish textual tradition, namely Talmudic, to shine through Chełm folklore.

History of print
In 1727, stories about Schildbürger were translated into Yiddish as under the title "Vunder zeltzame, kurtzvaylige, lustige, unt rekht lakherlikhe geshikhte unt datn der velt bekantn Shild burger" ("Wonderfully rare, brief, hearty, and quite laughable stories and facts about the world-famous burghers of Schilda"), and stories of this type entered into Jewish folklore. Initially some other towns with Jewish populations were "fools' towns", but eventually Chelm was firmly established as an archetypal one, however there is no documentary evidence on how this had happened. A collection of jokes which hinted at fools of Chelm was published in 1867 in an anonymous book Blitsende vitsen oder lakhpilen (Brilliant joke or laughing pills), now attributed to Isaac Mayer Dick, six tales of which had become to known as The wisdom of a certain town Khes. In Dick's 1872 novel Di orkhim in Duratshesok/Duratshtshok (Visitors in Durachok) the "fool's town" is a fictional Russian town of Durachok, where the Russian word дурачок means "little fool". For some reason Dick decided to place Jewish simpletons in a Russian location. In the latter book Dick draws a comparison of Duratshesok with Chelm saying that Helm has a reputation of vilde harishkeyn (wild foolishness) and gives the examples thereof, which turn out to be retellings of Schildbürger stories and their imitations.

The 1873 Deutsche Sprichwörter Lexikon ("Lexicon of German Proverbs") by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander contains an entry Chelmer narrunim ("Fools of Chelm") with the explanation "Because of its inhabitants, the town of Chelm in Poland has a reputation similar to that of Schilda, Schöppenstedt, Polkwitz, among others, in Germany. Many amusing stories about it are in circulation, similar to the antics of the Abderites and to jokes about Schilda. Among other things, they put an inscription of the stove in a synagogue: 'This stove belongs to the synagogue of Chelm' in order to protect it from stealing."

Ruth von Bernuth writes that the first book title which mentions both "Chelm" and "wisdom" and the first book exclusively devoted to the fools of Chelm is the 1887 book Der Khelemer khokhlem by an obscure writer Herts Bik. Only a single copy of the book is known, in the National Library of Jerusalem, where Ruth von Bernuth worked on a research grant.

In 19th-20th centuries the numerous collections about Khelemer were published in Yiddish, also translated into English and Hebrew. Many Yiddish writers published their own versions of Chelm stories or used folkoric themes from them, including Y. L. Peretz, Leyb Kvitko, and Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Fools of Chelm and Their History Mendele Mocher Sforim invented three shtetls inhabited by naive, luckless Jews, reminiscent of the wise men of Chelm: Kabtzansk (loosely meaning "Pauperville", from קבצנ, "pauper", "beggar", Tuneyadevke ("Idlersville", from Russian 'тунеядец', "freeloader", "idler"), and Glupsk ("Foolstown", from Russian, 'глупец' for "fool". Many Sholem Aleichem's stories are set in a fictional shtetl of Kasrilevka.

The Soviet Yiddish poet Ovsey Driz published a collection of verse Khelemer khakhomim, translated into Russian as Хеломские мудрецы in 1969, which was republished in post-Soviet Russia several times.

Other notable adaptations of folklore Chełm stories into the mainstream culture are the comedy Chelmer Chachomim ("The Wise Men of Chelm") by Aaron Zeitlin, The Heroes of Chelm (Di Helden fun Khelm, 1942) by Shlomo Simon, published in English translation as The Wise Men of Helm (Solomon Simon, 1945) and More Wise Men of Helm (Solomon Simon, 1965), and the book Chelmer Chachomim by Y. Y. Trunk. The animated short film comedy Village of Idiots also recounts Chełm tales.

Menachem Kipnis was one of the major contributors to Chelm lore. He published a column of Chelm stories in the Warsaw Yiddish daily Haynt, pretending to be a journalist reporting from Chelm. There is a (possibly apocryphal) story that the women of Chelm asked Kipnis to stop doing this because their daughters could not find bridegrooms: every time they hear from shadkhn that the girl is from Chelm, they cannot stop laughing. He later published these tales in the book Khelemer mayses (Chelm Stories; Polish transcription: Chelemer Majses, 1930).

Khelmer khakhomim oder yidn fun der kligster shtot in der welt ("The Wise Men of Chelm, or the Jews from the Wisest Town in the World") (1951) by Yehiel Yeshaya Trunk was described by Or Rogovin as "a vast book of sophisticated tales that artistically fuse the different Chelm traditions with innovative plots and historical, linguistic, and cultural material. Using mostly formalist methodology, this essay analyzes the devices and materials constituting a process I call shtetlization, in which the Chelm of folklore is immersed with the spirit and qualities of the shtetl to create not a realistic East European Jewish town but a myth of it. Locating Trunk’s work in its circumstances of writing, my conclusion explores Khelemer khakhomim as a means of commemoration of the lost world of the shtetl in the aftermath of the Holocaust".

Allen Mandelbaum's "Chelmaxioms : The Maxims, Axioms, Maxioms of Chelm" (David R. Godine, 1978) treats the wise men less as fools than as an "echt Chelm" of true scholars who in their narrow specialized knowledge are nonetheless knowledgeable but lacking sense. The poetry of Chelmaxioms is supposedly the discovered lost manuscripts of the wise men of Chelm.

Ruth von Bernuth lists more authors, including well into the 21st century, who took inspiration in Chelm stories.

Further examples
An explanation how Chelm happened to be full of wise men (note that Chelm is situated atop of a hill, as its name alludes: "chełm" means "helmet" in Polish):

Another one capitalizing on the location of Chelm atop of a hill:

Many stories poke fun at the sagacity of the Rabbinic sages of Chelm.

There are several variants on how the wise men of Khelm tried to capture the moon for their own by trapping its reflection in a barrel or in a well, although this folly is found in folktales in many locations all over the world. It appears that its first Jewish version was published in Dick's The Wisdom of a Certain Town Khes.

How Chelm was burned down
Chelm was plagued by mice. They bought a cat from a German, but they thought he was Russian. When he was boarding a train in the last minute they asked him speaking in Russian what the cat will eat when it is done with the mice. The German did not understand them and asked in German "Was?" ("What?"), but the Chelmers thought that he answered in Russian "Vas!", meaning "You!" Scared, they tried to kill the cat <...snip-snip...> They chased the cat into the synagogue, locked the door and put in on fire, but the cat went out of the window and into the house next door. <...you guess what went on ...> "Asej is ogebrent geworen Chelm, ün di kaz lebt bis hajntigen tog." - "So the whole Chelm was burned down, but the cat lives to this day".

A similar story happened with Schildburgers: They put a cat into the granary to hunt mice. "When it has no more mice to eat, it will eat our cattle; and when they are gone, it will eat us!"... "So they set fire to the granary. But when the cat smelt the fire, it sprang out of a window and fled to another house..."