ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: How many people have participated in Yiddish Farm’s classes?  And in their farm tours?

Yiddish Farm is located in Goshen, New York, about 60 miles, or 100 kilometers, northwest of New York City.  There is a large Jewish population in the area, including ultra-Orthodox Hassidic communities such as Kiryas Joel, as well as secular communities.

Yiddish Farm was founded in December, 2010, as an imaginative part of the growing movement to revive Yiddish, which in 1939 was the  primary language of over 75% of the world’s Jews.  The original idea was to create a Yiddish-speaking environment in which people from all backgrounds could learn and practice the language in the natural setting of working on a farm.  In 2012 we spoke with Naftali Ejdelman, the Educational Director, and Yisroel Bass, the Farm Manager, about the budding venture.

Yiddish Farm recently celebrated its 10^th anniversary, and this week Yisroel Bass is speaking with us about how the project has evolved.