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    The Jew Store: A Family Memoir
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    The Jew Store: A Family Memoir
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    The Jew Store: A Family Memoir
    Ebook357 pages6 hours

    The Jew Store: A Family Memoir

    By Stella Suberman

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    This debut memoir about a Jewish family pursuing the American Dream in the early twentieth century South is “vividly told and captivating in its humanity” (Kirkus Reviews).

    In small town America, in 1920, the ubiquitous dry goods store—selling suits and coats, shoes and hats, work clothes and school clothes, yard goods and notions—was usually owned by Jews and often referred to as “the Jew store.” That’s how Bronson’s Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee—owned and run by Stella Suberman’s father—was known.

    The Bronsons were the first Jews to live in the tiny Southern town consisting of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, and many Christian churches. Born into poverty in prerevolutionary Russia, Aaron Bronson moved his family from New York City to that remote corner of northwest Tennessee to prove himself a born salesman—and much more.

    With a novelist’s sense of scene, suspense, and characterization, Stella Suberman turns the clock back to a time when educated liberals were suspect and the Klan was a major threat to outsiders. In that setting, she brings to life her remarkable father, a man whose own brand of success proves that intelligence, empathy, and decency can build a home anywhere.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 14, 2001
    ISBN9781565128743

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    Reviews for The Jew Store

    4/5

    13 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is not a book that I would ever have picked up on my own. In fact, I dreaded having to read it. At the risk of sounding racist (which I most assuredly am not), I was afraid of another sad book about the horrible trials that a minority group has to weather. Instead, I found a truly delightful memoir. Aaron Bronson (nee Avram Droskowitz) left Russia for America, married a nice Jewish girl in New York, then headed south to Nashville. Apparently, in 1920s America, the dry goods stores in small towns were usually owned by Jews and called "the Jew store." The family moves to a small Tennessee town (Suberman has changed the name of the town and its inhabitants) and opens "Bronson's Low-Priced Store." I think what I liked best about the book was the combination of ups and downs experienced by the family. They were part of the community, and became an integral part of the town's life. Yes, there were challenges, and they aren't glossed over, but there is always the mindset that this is how things happened at that time and place. A very enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      This is a fascinating memoir of growing up in the Deep South during the 1920's. The Bronson family has to deal with layer after layer of American culture, first in New York City, where they find a tight immigrant community, and then in rural Tennessee where they are the only Russian Jewish immigrants and complete outsiders.
    • 3/5
      In the South every town had a "Jew Store;" a place that sold low-priced goods to factqory workers, farmers, and even blacks (if only through the back door by the alley). Stella. Suberman's memoir tells the story of her fsmily's store in a small town in Tennessee and is rich with the details of small town southern life in the 1920's & 1930's when Jews were unusual, exotic creatures - not trusted and with a status hardly higher than the black people they routinely ordered about.I frequently gots aggravated at Ma. Suberman's mother, who had the hardest time adapting of Athe whole family, but when I considered just how difficult it is to be different in a small town anywhere, especially I. The South and I became more charitable in my assessment.Filled with detail and written with bittersweet affection, this was a heartwarming read.
    • 5/5
      Delightful

      I grew up in a mid-sized, fairly sophisticated Southern town in the 50s and 60s, where there was a fair-sized Jewish community. And every bit as much antisemitism as Suberman's family faced. This is a wonderful window into the lives of the Southern Jews of the early 20th century, but probably not far off the mark for Jewish boomers, either.

      Suberman's prose is note-perfect, and the story and people will grab you from the first page and won't let you go even on the last.
    • 5/5
      An excellent memoir and an excellent record of Jewish history.
    • 4/5
      I read this book a second time for a different book group. I was not looking forward to it, but the poor writing did not bother me as much as previously, and I found the writer's life and comments as a member of the only Jewish family in a Southern town quite interesting.