"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.