Oy Gevalt !! The tzedakah box has been stolen from the synagogue! What’s to be done? Simple! Place the new box higher, next to the ceiling, where a thief can’t reach it. But what if an honest congregant wishes to drop a few ”groshen” into the new “pushka”? Simple again! Build stairs to reach the new one. Where does such wisdom originate? From Chelm a place known to everyone as the city of fools. The Chelmeners dissent, “We aren’t fools,” they insist, “foolish things just happen to us”. A new generations of Chelmeners rise up again when The Council of Wise Women shake up old traditions.
It’s fair to ask how so many fools ended up in Chelm? The story goes that G-d sent an angel with two bags to populate His world. The one sack brimming with wise folk the other bursting with fools. The angel was directed to distribute both sacks equally deep into the forest of all the Polish shtetls. Unfortunately the bag holding the fools split open over Chelm, now, “where anything that can go wrong, will”.
Author Izzy Abrahmson keeps us chuckling when a defiant group of woman aim to modernize Chelm. They demand girls should learn at yeshivas, prove women can run businesses and insist husbands help with house work–something heretofore unknown in Chelm. It all began with the birth of twins Yakov and Rachel Cohen. Mamaleh Sarah was overjoyed at her son Yakov’s welcome into the Jewish community with a bris, followed by a celebration. But Sarah was heartbroken that nothing was made of her daughter Rachel’s arrival. The council took Sarah’s words to heart with a royal splash in the mikveh. The immersion welcomed Rachel and made a girl just as important as a boy.
Other changes were not as easily tolerated. When Rachel asked to learn at the Yeshiva the community was in an uproar. Girls were never supposed to become educated. Weren’t they meant to cater to their husbands’ wishes, stay home, cook, clean house? Who would ever marry an educated girl? And why in the world would Yakov choose to be Queen Esther for Purim? Things just didn’t seem right. Folks began to kvetch.
The Kvetchfet was “the single most important gathering” in Chelm. Once a year the Chelmeners kvetched, griped, complained publicly. The best kvetcher was declared King or Queen of Kvetch. Each year Sarah poured her heart out complaining more than anyone else. But nobody listened. Until to everyone’s astonishment after a decade of Kvetching, she vanished from Chelm. Rabbi Abrahamson was missing as well. A scandal, in Chelm? Never!
If you are looking for the great American novel perhaps, try another book. But if you want a giggle blended with honesty and a little chutzpah, consult The Council of Wise Women. It’s a hoot.