How the Wise Men Got to Chelm

August 8, 2016
Bernuth, director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides a detailed and comprehensive examination of the evolution of some of the best-known Yiddish folk stories—those revolving around the comically foolish men of the town of Chelm—that places those tales in historical and cultural context. She goes back centuries, looking at traditions of stories of fools as early as the late Middle Ages, and how they came to be incorporated in European Jewish culture. Her cogent analysis carries through to the present day and to non-European milieus; Woody Allen parodied the Chelm stories in a 1970 comic essay for the New Yorker, and a current blog, Chelm-on-the-Med, collects absurd soft news stories about Israel. The existence of that blog, evidence of what the author terms Chelm’s “major and still-unexplored role in Israeli popular culture and literature,” is but one of the eye-openers for readers who enjoy the stories of inept Jews who try to trap moonlight in a barrel. There are plenty of other revelations as well, including a close study of how the stories evolved between the world wars.

November 1, 2016

The fictitious town of Chelm, where all the world's fools are said to have mistakenly fallen during creation, is an important part of Yiddish folk tradition and paradigm of folly literature. Von Bernuth (Germanic languages & director, Carolina Ctr. for Jewish Studies, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) delivers an effective discussion and detailed history of Chelm tales and folly literature, and the influences from Jewish and European culture, history, and identity on these traditions. Enhanced with Chelm stories, topics include Chelm in literature and on stage (e.g., Isaac Bashevis Singer's seminal stories), a history and meticulous discussion of folly literature (e.g., comparisons of the German collection of folly literature, Schildburgerbuch, and its Yiddish translation, Shildburger bukh), connections between real-world and fictitious geography (e.g., similarities between tales of the foolish town Schildburg, and Schildau in Saxony), and more. VERDICT Thorough and accessible, this book is a welcome addition to Jewish and European history, literature, and folklore collections and is recommended for both specialists and general readers.--Jennifer Harris, Southern New Hampshire Univ. Lib., Manchester

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