WE’RE TALKING CHELM

The article on “Shlemiel the First” writer-director Robert Brustein called Chelm a “fictional village” in Poland (“Not Just Any Old ‘Shlemiel,’ ” by Jan Breslauer, May 4). Chelm is a very real city that exists today, about 150 miles southeast of Warsaw, in the province of Lubin.

In Yiddish literature and humor, inhabitants of Chelm were always considered fools and simpletons. In fact, that’s what Chelm is known for. It could be said that a major export of that city has been its colorful and humorous literary characters.

SYLVIA MAIBAUM

Pacific Palisades