Isaac Chelo

Isaac Chelo (also Hilo, Hilu or Khelo), in Hebrew יצחק חילו, was a rabbi of the 14th century. His place of residence is unclear. Eliakim Carmoly, in his French supposed translation of Chelo's itinerary, wrote "Laresa du royaume d'Aragon",[1] which Gershom Scholem interpreted as an erroneous spelling of Lerida.[2] However, Dan Shapira took it to mean Larissa in Thessaly.[3] Chelo is famous for an itinerary of the Holy Land first published in 1847, though many believe it to have been forged by Carmoly.

Chelo's Itinerary

In 1847, the controversial[4] French scholar Eliakim Carmoly published an account titled Les chemins de Jérusalem (The Roads from Jerusalem, שבילי דירושלם in Hebrew), purporting to be Chelo's description of Jerusalem and seven roads leading from it, written in 1333.[1] An English translation was published by Elkan Adler in 1930.[5]

Carmoly wrote that the original Hebrew manuscript was in his own library, but when his library was catalogued after his death, no such manuscript was found.[3]

Scholem examined the library in 1925 and found nine lines of an 18th-century copy of the itinerary.[3] He charged that the itinerary had a number of anachronisms, contradictions, and quotations from Kabbalistic works postdating Chelo.[6] On this basis, Scholem judged the itinerary to be a forgery, written or greatly expanded by Carmoly himself.[6] This assessment has been accepted by Michael Ish-Shalom,[7] Dan Shapira,[3] Joshua Prawer[8] and Yoel Elitzur.[9]

Prawer also alleged that there was no Jewish community in Hebron at the time the Itinerary claimed to describe one.[3] Prawer wrote that "This itinerary is unfortunately still being quoted by unwary scholars, even though the forgery was proved almost 50 years ago."[8]

Michael Ehrlich, on the other hand, argued against Scholem and Ish-Shalom that most of the itinerary was likely authentic, as much of the historical and geographical information presented therein appears correct, and there are multiple pieces of information that aren't likely to have been included by a mid-19th-century forger.[10]

References

1. E. Carmoly (1847). Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte des XIII^e, XIV^e, XV^e, XVI^e et XVII^e siècle, traduits de I'hébreu, et accompagnés de tables, de cartes et d 'éclaircissements. Bruxelles: A. Vandale.
2. G. Scholem (1934). "ספר שבילי דירושלים המיוחס לר' יצחק חילו - מזויף (The Book of the Way to Jerusalem Attributed to R. Isaac Hilo - a Forgery)". Zion. 6: 39–53, 220–221. JSTOR 23540112.
3. Shapira, Dan D. Y. (2006). "Remarks on Avraham Firkowicz and the Hebrew Mejelis "Document"". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 59 (2): 131–180. doi:10.1556/AOrient.59.2006.2.1.
4. He has been accused of fabrications by several scholars, see Roth, Cecil (2007). "Forgeries". In Berenbaum, Michael; Skolnik, Fred (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference. pp. 125–126. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
5. Adler, Elkan Nathan (1930). Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages (Dover 1987 ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 130–150.
6. Shapira (2006), citing G. Scholem (1934). "ספר שבילי דירושלים המיוחס לר' יצחק חילו - מזויף (The Book of the Way to Jerusalem Attributed to R. Isaac Hilo - a Forgery)". Zion. 6: 39–53, 220–221. JSTOR 23540112.
7. Ish-Shalom, Michael (1935). "על "שבילי דירושלים" ל יצחק בר' יוסף חילו (On "Shevile Dirushalaim" of R. Isaac b. R. Joseph Chelo)". Tarbiẕ: 197–209. JSTOR 23583704.
8. Prawer, Joshua (1988). The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Oxford University Press. p. 277 n.85. Students of itineraries always remember the very famous and clever forgery of a mid-19th-century scholar of repute, E. Carmoly, who invented the itinerary of one Isaac Chelo.
9. Elitzur, Yoel (2004). Ancient Place Names in the Holy Land: Preservation and History. Magnes Press, Hebrew University. p. 183.
10. Ehrlich, Michael (2008). "ספר שבילי דירושלם המיוחס לר' יצחק חילו - מזויף? (The Book of the Ways to Jerusalem attributed to R. Isaac Chelo - a Forgery?)". Jerusalem and Eretz-Israel. 6: 59–87.