ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What are three reasons why people may want to learn Yiddish?

The Medem Library in Paris is the largest Yiddish language library in Europe. It was founded in 1929 by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, members of the Bund. Since the late 1970s, the library has also been a research library and during the 1990s, the Medem Library absorbed most of the holdings of the four other Yiddish libraries in France. In 2002, the Medem Library merged with the Association for Yiddish Studies to form the Paris Yiddish Center-Medem Library, and it is now the leading institution for the dissemination of Yiddish culture in Europe. Aside from the library, the Center offers workshops for artistic endeavors, activities for children, cultural programs and, of course, language classes at all levels.

This year, for the first time, the Paris Yiddish Center organized a summer program in Berlin. We spoke with Tal Hever-Chybowski, its coordinator, about this exciting initiative, and what made it so special.