The Medem-Bibliotek: The Yiddish Library of Paris

138 SHOFAR Spring 1996 Vol. 14, No.3 THE MEDEM-BIBLIOTEK: THE YIDDISH LIBRARY OF PARIS by Gilles Rozier Gilles Rozier, director of the Medem Ubrary, is completing a doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris VII on the writers of the review Yung-yidisb in Lodz. Rozier's publications include a volume of French translations (in collaboration with Viviane Siman) of the American Yiddish poet Celia Dropkin, Dans Ie vent cbaud (paris: L'Harmattan, 1994). The story of the Medem Ubrary is deeply intertwined with the history of Jewish immigration to Paris from Eastern Europe, especially regarding the activities of the Jewish Labor Bund1 in France. Mass immigration, which began in 1880, saw its first great period of development before World War I, with the birth of Yiddish political parties and trade unions. The first Bundist organization in Paris, the Pamer yidisber arbeter-bildungs-fareyn (Parisian Jewish Workers' Union for Education), was established in 1900. The year 1904 saw the creation of a mutual-aid society, the Arbeter-fareyn Kemler (the "Fighters '" Workers' Union), which sponsored a library and a small theatrical troupe. The library was situated at 27, rue des Ecouffes, in the third arrondissement of Paris, in the heart of the Marais, a neighborhood we shall speak more of later. During the first world war, the Bundist groups offered assistance to families in need and sponsored a low-cost dining hall. IThe Bund was a Jewish socialist party, founded in Vilna in 1897. It supported national rights for the Jews, promoted the use of Yiddish in all spheres of life, and was secularistic and anti-Zionist. [All notes to this article are by the translator.) The Yiddish Library ofParis 139 In 1922, leftist immigrants of various stripes-communists, Bundists, and Po'alei Zion (labor Zionists)-created the Kultur-lige (Culture League), whose activities included the establishment of a library. In 1925, the communists took control of the Kultur-lige and its library, whereupon the Bundists and Po'alei Zion founded their own organizations. The Bundists called theirs the Arbeter-klub afn nomen Vladimir Medem (the Vladimir Medem Workers' Club), also known as the Medem-jarband (Medem Union), named for the Bundist ideologue, who was born in latvia in 1879, and died in New York in 1923. The club had sixty members at its inception. In 1928, seven young immigrants from Eastern Europe, all members of the Medem-jarband, created a new library, called the Nombergbibliotek baym Medem-jarband (Nomberg library of the Medem Union ), after the Yiddish journalist and writer Hersh David Nomberg, who had died a· year earlier. A photograph, taken on February 16, 1929, shows the seven founders: Yitzhok Blumenstein, Metr Mendelsohn (the only formally trained intellectual of the group), Hatm Golub, Leyb Tabatchnik, Avrom Zusman, Eli Shvirinski, Dovid Leiber and Kiwe Vaisbrot . That photograph still reigns supreme above the bust of Vladimir Medem in the library office. The library was first installed at 50, rue des Francs-Bourgeois, once again in the heart of the Marais. At the time, it occupied the floor above a cafe. The Marais, which Jews called the pletsl (the little plaza), is now one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Paris. At the time, it was one of the areas most densely populated with Jewish immigrants.. To raise funds to inaugurate the library, the Medem-klub organized in 1928 a cultural evening, in which the writers David Einhorn, Sholem Asch, Zalman Shneour and Peretz Hirschbein took part. The monies collected allowed the Medem-klub to acquire the first volumes for the library as well as to purchase cabinets for books at the nearby BHV department store. Sholem Asch donated two hundred books, and three hundred were given by Baruch Charney Vladeck, general manager of New York's Yiddish daily Foroerts and future chairman of the Jewish labor Committee. In 1932, the Bundist movement established the Parisian ArbeterRing (Workmen's Circle), as a mutual-aid society and also as the agency responsible for the college of the movement and its tsugob-shul (complementary school). Shortly thereafter, it moved into 110, rue Vieille-duTemple , also in the Marais. For thirty years these offices, occupying a large apartment on the third floor of...