March 23, 2022
How Chelm Became the Jewish Town of Fools
By PhilologosWhy was a random Polish shtetl singled out in the 19th century to become the home of fools in dozens of Jewish fables?
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A friend mentioned being surprised the other day to hear of Ukrainian refugees being taken in by families in the Polish city of Chełm. “I never knew there actually was such a place,” he said. “And even if there was, I’d have thought its reputation would have caused it to change its name.”
Yes, there is a place called Chełm—located, Wikipedia tells us, “in southeastern Poland . . . some 25 kilometers from the border with Ukraine” and home to 63,949 inhabitants, who pronounce its name “Khewm.” (Yiddish speakers said “Khelem” or “Kheylem,” as do knowledgeable Jews today.) And they have no need to be embarrassed, since, writes the North Carolina University associate professor Ruth von Bernuth in her 2016 book How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition, “in non-Jewish Polish culture, Chełm as a town full of fools in unknown.”