From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!ucbvax!C70:ARPAVAX:CAD:teklabs!larrym
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Title: re: Chelm
Article-I.D.: teklabs.1217
Posted: Thu Jun 10 23:01:47 1982
Received: Fri Jun 11 06:53:47 1982
Reply-To: AD:teklabs!larrym

    Leo Rosten (in "The Joys of Yiddish") has the following to say about the
legendary town of Chelm:

    Chelm -- Pronounced KHELM, with the gutteral KH.

    The name of a "legendary" town inhabited by befuddled, stupid, foolish,
    but endearing people.

	Chelm is used as the name of a mythical place, but there is and
    was a real Chelm, some forty miles east of Lubin, with a poplulation
    of around four thousand, the majority of whom were Jews.  Another
    Chelm exists just east of Tarnow.  How Chelm achieved its reputation
    for hilarious "non sequiturs" I do not know.
	Chelm would enjoy no special name or fame, and surely no place in
    this lexicon, were it not that in Jewish folklore it has become the
    archetypical home of simpletons, and incubator of amiable fools, the
    Jewish equivalent of that Gotham from which "the wise men" came,
    Holland's Kampen, Italy's Cuneo, and Germany's "Schildburg" -- all
    famous for fools.
	There must be a thousand tall tales about Chelm and the unbeliev-
    able Chelmites; I give you but a handful.

[Unfortunately, I find this handful to be some of the least funny stories in
this hilarious and illuminating book.  I'll only type the first two.  -- LJM]
			-------------------------
    The rabbi of Chelm visited the prison, and there he heard all but
    one of the inmates insist on their innocence.  So he came back, held
    a council of wise men, and recommended that Chelm have **two** prisons:
    one for the guilty and another for the innocent.
			-------------------------
    The sages of Chelm began to argue about which was more important to the
    world: the moon or the sun.  The community divided into two passionate
    camps.  The reigning wise man then ruled: "the moon **must** be more
    important than the sun, because without the light of the moon our
    nights would be so dark we could not see anything.  The sun, however,
    shines only by day--which is when we don't need it!"