An edition of How the wise men got to Chelm (2016)
How the Wise Men Got to Chelm
The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition
By Ruth von Bernuth
Publish Date
2016
Publisher
New York University Press
Language
eng
Pages
327
Description:
"How the Wise Men Got to Chelm is the first in-depth study of Chelm literature and its relationship to its literary precursors. By placing literary Chelm and its 'foolish' antecedents in a broader historical context, it shows how they have functioned for over three hundred years as models of society, somewhere between utopia and dystopia. These imaginary foolish towns have enabled writers both to entertain and highlight a variety of societal problems, a function that literary Chelm continues to fulfill in Jewish literature to this day"--From publisher description.