Isaac Chelo

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Isaac Chelo (also Hilo, Hilu or Khelo), in Hebrew יצחק חילו, was a rabbi of 14th century Larissa.[1] He is famous for an itinerary of the Holy Land first published in 1847. However, the document is now commonly considered a 19th-century forgery.

Chelo's Itinerary

In 1847, the controversial[2] French scholar Carmoly published an account Les chemins de Jérusalem (The Roads from Jerusalem), purporting to be Chelo's description of Jerusalem and seven roads leading from it, written in 1334.[3] An English translation was published by Adler in 1930.[4] 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.[1] Scholem examined the library in 1925 and found nine lines of an 18th century copy of the Itinerary.[1] He charged that the Itinerary had a number of anachronisms, contradictions, and quotations from Kabbalistic works postdating Chelo.[5] On this basis, Scholem judged the Itinerary to be a forgery, written or greatly expanded by Carmoly himself.[5] This assessment has been accepted by Dan Shapira,[1] Joshua Prawer[6] and Yoel Elitsur.[7] Prawer also alleged that there was no Jewish community in Hebron at the time the Itinerary claimed to describe one.[1] Prawer wrote that "This itinerary is unfortunately still being quoted by unwary scholars, even though the forgery was proved almost 50 years ago."[6]

References

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  2. He has been accused of fabrications by several scholars, see Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  5. 5.0 5.1 Shapira (2006), citing Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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