Jewish Life Digital Edition August 2015 | Página 12

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEVER KNEW

THE WISE MEN OF CHELM
Luczkowskiego Square in Chełm

The village or town of fools is a folklore tradition common to many
European countries. In Germany, there were the ‘Schildbürger’ from
the town of Schilda; in the Netherlands, the people of Kampen; in
Bohemia, the people of Kocourkov; in England, the ‘wise men’ of
Gotham; and in Moravia, the people of Šimperk.
Similarly, according to Jewish European tradition, the city of Chelm
became synonymous with foolish wise men, or wise fools. As with
their European counterparts, a typical Chelmner was convinced of his
own wisdom, and would never, ever allow common sense to get in the
way of a good idea. However, Chelm, located 65 kilometres south-east
of Lublin and home to a Jewish community since at least the fourteenth century, was in fact a quiet, fairly unremarkable town, noted if
anything for its Torah scholarship.
So, how did it come to earn such an unflattering epithet – especially
when there were other Jewish towns in Poland, such as Poyzn, ‘vying’
for Chelm’s foolish crown? Some say it may it have occurred because of
a rivalry with another town; others say humorists were looking for an
‘every town’ and Chelm simply earned its reputation purely by chance.
The series of German Schildbürger tales were possibly the first
Chelm-like stories ever written. Published in 1597, the books were
spread throughout German-speaking lands by peddlers and traders,
and were reprinted more than 30 times, crossing the cultural divide
which separated German Christians from the Jews who lived among
them. It is believed the first time that Chelm, as such, became the centre of such stories was in a book of humorous anecdotes allegedly written by Ayzik Meyer Dik in 1867. From then on, the Chelm myth became stabilised, remaining a popular feature in Jewish folklore.
For any reader unacquainted with its humour, the following sketch
is a fairly routine example of the male logic of a typical Chelmer:
A man was married to a shrew of a woman who ordered him around
all day long. Once, when she had several women friends calling on her,
she wanted to show off before them what absolute control she had over
her husband.
“Schlemiel,” she ordered, “get under that table!”
Without a word, the man crawled under the table.
“Now, schlemiel, come out!” she commanded again.
“I won’t, I won’t,” he defied her angrily. “I’ll show you I’m still master
in this house!”
A number of Yiddish writers, among them YL Peretz, Leyb Kvitko,
and Isaac Bashevis Singer, also used the fanciful themes of the wise
men of Chelm as a source for humorous or satirical stories.
Even today, jokes about Chelm abound – usually featuring the hapless Chaim Yankel. However, let us not forget the fate of the real
Jewish citizens of Chelm. On the eve of the Second World War there
were about 15 000 Jews in the city. Hundreds were murdered immediately following the Nazi occupation in October 1939, and the rest despatched to Sobibor death camp in 1942.

8 JEWISH LIFE QISSUE 87

THE POWER OF PRAYER
The first prayer was uttered by Adam, the first man,
on the sixth day of Creation. Adam saw a world empty
of vegetation. The fruits and vegetables were ready to
grow, but were waiting for man’s prayer to bring forth
the rain they needed. It was only after he’d prayed
that Adam found himself in Gan Eden.
The prayers we say today were formulated by the
Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, the Men of the Great
Assembly. Some of those members were prophets and
were divinely inspired. This happened at the beginning of the Second Temple era, after the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile.
The Midrash says that after Jews finish praying, an
angel gathers the prayers from all the synagogues,
weaves them into a crown and places the crown on
Hashem’s head.

INNOVATIVE ISRAEL

ISRAELI INSTITUTE PIONEERS NEW TEST FOR AUTISM
A study by researchers in Israel has found that, unlike
those without autism, autistic children spend just as long
inhaling unpleasant scents as they do pleasant scents.
They now believe that the test could provide a key indication of autism in non-verbal children. Behaviour, social
interactions and communication skills are all affected by
autism and the disorder affects one in every 160 children
globally. It often takes until a child is at least two before it
can be diagnosed. The children in the trial at the
Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, took part in a
10-minute experiment. A red tube sent either pleasant or
unpleasant odours up the nose while the green tube recorded changes in breathing patterns.
One of the researchers, PhD student Liron Rozenkrantz,
said children normally altered the depth of their sniffing to
the odours. She noted, “Children with autism didn’t show
this modulation at all – they took the same sniff for the
smell of flowers or shampoo as they did for rotten fish.”
They also showed that the more severe the symptoms of autism, the longer the children inhaled the unpleasant smells.
The researchers believe that sense of smell has a role in social interaction, which could explain its link to autism.
The team has now developed a computer program that can
detect autism in a group of children, with 81% accuracy. JL

TEXT: LIZ SAMUELS; PHOTOGRAPHS: BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM, WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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