Nadene Goldfoot
Chelm was a Polish town. It's Jewish settlement dated back from the 15th century but was destroyed during the Cossack massacres of 1648, and was subsequently refounded. Chełm received town rights in 1233, passed to Poland in 1377, and fell to Austria (1795) and then to Russia (1815).
The city prospered in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was then that The Golem of Chełm by Rabbi Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm became famous, but the city declined in the 17th century due to the wars which ravaged Poland.
Old town of Chelm, Poland. Chelm, Lubelskie, Poland.
The community numbered 7,615 before World War II. Some Jews escaped to Russia in 1939, and the remainder was killed by the Nazis.
Chełm was once a vibrant multicultural and religious centre populated by Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Lutherans and Jews. Germans began settling in southern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula in the late 18th century, but the bulk of immigration and settlement occurred during the Napoleonic period, from 1800 onward, with a concentration in the years 1803 to 1805. At the time, southern Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire.
Designated New Russia, and often colloquially South Russia (or Südrussland by its German-speaking inhabitants), these lands had been annexed by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great after successful wars against the Ottoman Empire (1768–1774) and the Crimean Khanate (1783). The area of settlement was not as compact as that of the Volga territory; rather it was home to a chain of colonies. Catherine the Great just happened to put all Jews into the Pale of Settlement and out of Russia as well. So out went the Jews and in came the Germans into Russian land.
The native Jewish inhabitants of Chelm figure in many anecdotes of Jewish folk-humor. Chełm became well-known thanks to Jewish storytellers and writers such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist in the Yiddish language, who wrote The Fools of Chełm and Their History (published in English translation in 1973), and the great Yiddish poet Ovsey Driz who wrote stories in verse. Notable adaptations of the Chełm Jewish folklore include the comedy Chelmer Khakhomim ("The Wise Men of Chelm") by Aaron Zeitlin, The Heroes of Chelm (1942) by Shlomo Simon, published in English translation as The Wise Men of Helm (Simon, 1945) and More Wise Men of Helm (Simon, 1965), as well as the book Chelmer Khakhomim by Y. Y. Trunk. Allen Mandelbaum's "Chelmaxioms : The Maxims, Axioms, Maxioms of Chelm" (David R. Godine, 1978) treats the wise men of the Jewish Chełm as scholars who are knowledgeable but lacking sense.
The wise men of Chelm and the Foolish Carp, by Isaac Bashevis Singer. When Chelm community leader, Gronam Ox, is given a live carp in honour of his great wisdom, he is delighted. He knows, of course, that eating the brain of a carp increases wisdom and that the size of the tail is indicative of the size of the brain. ..
The Chełm stories emulate the interpretive process of Midrash and the Talmudic style of argumentation, and continue the dialogue between rabbinic texts and their manifestation in the daily arena. The seemingly tangential questioning that is typical of the Chełm Jewish Council can be interpreted as a comedic hint at the vastness of Talmudic literature. The combination of paralleled argumentation and linguistic commonality allows the Jewish textual tradition, namely Talmudic, to shine through Chełm folklore.
The first German settlers arrived in 1787, first from West Prussia, then later from Western and Southwestern Germany and Alsace, France; as well as from the Warsaw area. Catholics, Lutherans, and Mennonites were all known as capable farmers (see Molotschna for Mennonite settlements in the Melitopol area); the Empress Catherine, herself an ethnic German, sent them a personal invitation to immigrate to the Russian Empire, as she felt they would make useful subjects and enrich her realm. She granted them certain privileges such as the free exercise of their religion and language within their largely closed communities, also exempt from military service and taxation.
The population was homogenized after World War II, but would have lost the large Jewish population
In the 18th century, the situation in eastern Poland stabilized and the town started to slowly recover from the damages suffered during the Swedish Deluge and the Khmelnytsky uprising. The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack-Polish War, the Chmielnicki Uprising, the Khmelnytsky massacre or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 .
It attracted a number of new settlers from all parts of Poland, including people of Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish faiths. In 1794, the Chełm Voivodeship was established.
Chełm was one of the first towns to join the Kościuszko's Uprising later that year. The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794 and the Second Polish War, was an uprising against the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Prussian partition in 1794. In the Battle of Chełm of 8 June 1794, the forces of Gen. Józef Zajączek were defeated by the Russians under Valerian Zubov and Boris Lacy, the town was yet again sacked by the invading armies. The following year, as a result of the Third Partition of Poland, the town was annexed by Austria.
The reform laws affecting the Jews did not pass, because Poland was wiped off the map of the independent countries of Europe and divided among her 3 powerful neighbors. Khelm belonged to Austria from 1795-1807, and from 1807-1812 to the Great Duchy of Warsaw. From 1812-1915, it was ruled by Russia, and a portion by the Congress of Poland.
During the division of Poland, the old trade roads were disturbed and abandoned. These old routes had a huge influence on the development of Jewish commerce in Khelm. The new economic situation and the new roads and routes were not as favorable for Khelm, which was located in a relegated corner of southeast Congress-Poland. The political situation in Khelm became very tense. The Russian government began a strong political Russification program, especially after the failure of the Polish Uprising of 1863. In the Khelm region lived many peasants who belonged to the “Uniate Church of Little Russia”, and were Greek Catholics.
The Russians put a great deal of pressure on them to leave their Church and join the Greek-Orthodox Church. In 1875, the Greek Catholic Church was outlawed, which initiated a bitter 30-year struggle on the part of the Greek Catholics [Ruthenians] against the Russian government. There were bloody demonstrations, strikes, arrests, bitter press campaigns, etc. In order to strengthen the Russification program, the Russian government circles began, at the end of 1880, to consider a plan to create a separate Khelmer region and unite this region with Russia. Just short of the start of WW I, the Russian Duma [Parliament] on January l, 1913, made a decision to create a new region from parts of the Lublin and Shedlets region. Isn't this happening right now with Ukraine?
The Duma's decision aroused a storm of protests in the Polish population world-wide. Understandably, the political tension did not help the economic stability and development of Khelm.
To the old anti-Semitic population was added the reactionary Russian officials and clergy. Their attitude toward the Jews had a spokesman who was a highly placed Russian priest. During his visit to Khelm in 1889, his travel book was published in an influential Russian newspaper. The priest, Gorodetsky, writes in the newspaper that the Jews of Khelm made a very negative impression upon him. He refers to the Jews as “parasites in the guise of human beings”, and writes further that in “the major part of town, the small Jewish houses with tiny shops, where the dirty Jewesses and Jews are pushing from every door.”
The Jewish households began to grow and by 1920, had increased three-fold; the Jewish population in the past 40 years increased only two-fold. However, trade and commerce were once again in Jewish hands. According to Dr. Shyper's data, in 1921, 88.3% of commerce and trade in Khelm was in Jewish hands, and in 1926, 82% was in Jewish hands.
| Year | Total Population of Khelm | Jewish Population | % of Jews |
| 1827 | 21,793 | 1,902 | 1% |
| 1856 | 3,662 | 2,493 | 68.0% |
| 1893 | 11,887 | 6,356 | 53.5% |
| 1910 | 17,555 | 7,814 | 44.5% |
| 1921 | 23,221 | 12,064 | 51.1% |
| 1931 | 29,074 | 13,537 | 46.5% |
Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che%C5%82m
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/chelm/che013.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Germans
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+wise+men+of+Chelm+and+the+Foolish+Carp&sxsrf=AOaemvK07IwjWPPMaXvupmXuLOEilodm9Q%3A1640662687092&source=hp&ei=n4bKYYaPA-Tb0PEP3MyboAY&iflsig=ALs-wAMAAAAAYcqUr8nupDXbWCZCmv7SKv
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