In the article on Chelm in Vol. 5 of the Encyclopedia Judaica, there is a paragraph describing Chelm's place in Jewish folklore. It points out that Chelm tales are noodlehead stories, found in the folklore of many cultures. A "Chelmer chacham" is like one of the wisemen of Gotham in English lore, for instance.
Steve Sanfield's afterword in his The Feather Merchants and Other Tales of the Fools of Chelm (Orchard Books, 1991) also mentions Chelm as being part of a tradition of fool or nitwit tales. He goes on to write: "No one knows how long people have been telling stories about the Sages (or Fools) of Chelm. Some folklore scholars say five hundred years, others say longer, but just about everyone agrees that the stories originated and developed in the Yiddish-speaking world of Eastern Europe" (p.93). Better source notes would have cited the referred-to "folklore scholars." Eric A. Kimmel remarks in his note to The Jar of Fools: Eight Hanukkah Stories from Chelm (Holiday House, 2000) that "the Chelm of Jewish legend can be anywhere in Eastern Europe. Chelm is the traditional town of fools" (p.56). Erika, as a library school student, you may want to get some practice in reference work by doing more of this kind of searching. I would particularly seek out what Howard Schwartz or Peninnah Schram have to say. It appears that Amy Friedman, who retold the Chelm story that appeared in your newspaper, should be a little more careful in her source notes! Linda R. Silver ========================================================================== HaSafran - The Electronic Forum of the Association of Jewish Libraries Submissions for HaSafran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org/
