The Jew Store: A Family Memoir [Hardcover]

Stella Suberman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 1998

For a real bargain, while you're making a living, you should make also a life.--Aaron Bronson. In 1920, in small town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store--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 Stella Suberman's father's store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store, in Concordia, Tennessee, was known locally. The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in that tiny town (1920 population: 5,318) of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. Aaron Bronson moved his family all the way from New York City to that remote corner of northwest Tennessee to prove himself a born salesman--and much more. Told by Aaron's youngest child, THE JEW STORE is that rare thing--an intimate family story that sheds new light on a piece of American history. Here is ONE MAN'S FAMILY with a twist--a Jew, born into poverty in prerevolutionary Russia and orphaned from birth, finds his way to America, finds a trade, finds a wife, and sets out to find his fortune in a place where Jews are unwelcome. With a novelist's sense of scene, suspense, and above all, characterization, Stella Suberman turns the clock back to a time when rural America was more peaceful but no less prejudiced, when educated liberals were suspect, and when the Klan was threatening to outsiders. In that setting, she brings to life her remarkable father, a man whose own brand of success proves that intelligence, empathy, liberality, and decency can build a home anywhere. THE JEW STORE is a heartwarming--even inspiring--story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1920, two years before the author was born, her family became the first Jews to live in the small town of Concordia, Tenn. Against the objections of his wife, Aaron Bronson, a Russian Jewish immigrant who had worked in dry goods stores in Savannah, Ga., and Nashville, started his own business by opening Bronson's Low-Priced Store in Concordia, which the locals called "the Jew store." In this richly detailed memoir, in which her father's optimism contrasts sharply with her mother's anxiety about their ability to provide their children with a Jewish education in their new surroundings, Suberman evokes early-20th-century life in the rural South and depicts her family's struggles to find a place in a town where African Americans suffered discrimination and poverty, the Ku Klux Klan was on the march and townspeople viewed Jews with suspicion. Suberman provides vivid characterizations of Concordia's residents, especially Brookie Simmons, who not only gave the Bronsons a home but fought to end child labor in the town's factory. In 1933, Aaron finally yielded to his wife's entreaties and moved with her and their three children back to New York City, even though they had come to regard Concordia as home. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-Russian immigrant Aaron Bronson took his wife and children from their enclave of New York Jews to a tiny Tennessee town where he set himself up as a successful storekeeper in the 1920s. The social, economic, and even spiritual experiences of the Bronson family are recounted by its youngest member, who evidently was a keen listener to family tales as well as an observer of events around her in early childhood. Nearly half of this autobiographical work predates Stella Ruth's birth and even when she appears on the stage, she is no scene-stealer. Her mother had to hide her ethnicity on her jobs in New York, and took years to assimilate to life in Tennessee. Joey and Miriam, the older children, dealt with the blunt questions asked by local children about their Jewishness with aplomb and made good friends. Mr. Bronson had to sell the insular town of Concordia on the idea that a "Jew store," a low-priced dry-goods store, was even needed and, being a "born sal-es-man," he succeeded in selling the idea and the goods as well. Suberman's fine writing and her ability to record tones and scents as well as images make this a lively and engaging story. Anti-Semitism is presented factually, as are the limitations of various townsfolk's penchant for doing good or evil. This will attract casual readers and serve as a useful auxiliary text in classrooms.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1st edition (January 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565121988
• ISBN-13: 978-1565121980
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,741,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A POIGNANT REMEMBRANCE, January 28, 2001

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Jew Store: A Family Memoir (Hardcover)

"For a real bargain, while you're making a living, you should also make a life." That was Aaron Bronson's motto. Well, Russian Jewish immigrant Bronson did both, "in spades," as he would say. His daughter, Stella Suberman, has now written a book, and she's done it "in spades."

This warm memoir of her family's experiences as the first Jews to live in Concordia, Tennessee, is vibrant with wit and cogent with commentary about 1920s life in a small Southern town.

Rather than a pejorative title, Ms. Suberman says "the Jew store" is what people really called such shops, businesses owned by Jews who catered to farmhands, share croppers, and factory hands, offering them inexpensive clothes, piece goods, and linens. "They didn't know about political correctness in those days," she said, "that is just what it was called."

Seeing opportunity in the South, Aaron Bronson, his wife, Reba, and their two children, Joey and Miriam (Stella was not yet born) set out from New York City to open a dry goods store. Upon arriving in Concordia, population 5,381, the family was taken in by voluble, independent Miss Brookie.

Reba, who came with a mood that was "like a thing on her chest," was ill-at-ease, fearing the Ku Klux Klan, and people who believed Jews had horns on their heads. Later, she faced what she considered to be an even greater terror: Joey might not have a bar mitzvah and Miriam might be in love with a Gentile.

On the other hand, Aaron took to the town immediately and opened "Bronson's Low-Priced Store," so identified by gilt lettering on the windows. His elation at having his own business knew no bounds; Reba described him as "Flying with the birdies."

Aaron's shop flourished, as did he, becoming the first to hire a black as a salesperson. In years to come, he would make invaluable contributions to his Depression wracked community.

Detente preceded affection as the townsfolk overcame their initial skepticism of Jewish people and grew to view the Bronson family as neighbors and friends. Miss Brookie gave Miriam piano lessons and attempted to enlist Reba in a battle to do away with child labor in the local shoe factory.

Nonetheless, In 1933 Reba held sway and, although Aaron thought of Concordia as home, he agreed to take their three children and return to New York City, where he would open a garage and each child would eventually marry within the Jewish faith.

Stella Suberman has turned a poignant family remembrance into a rich, sometimes funny, always touching story. In addition, she has shed light on a little known facet of Jewish/American history.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a small masterpiece, September 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Jew Store: A Family Memoir (Hardcover)

This jewel of a book richly deserves five stars. The author's depiction of a Jewish family living in a small town in Tennessee in the 1920s is beautifully written. Especially impressive is the way the author wrote about anti-semitism without exploiting the issue for dramatic effect. (Compare this memoir, set in the 1920s, with moronic modern flicks like "School Ties" in which students at a boarding school in the 1950s shout at a Jewish student, "We hate you because you're Jewish." Give me a break.)

Just as the author's family's Jewishness is dealt with subtly, so are the townspeople drawn: all of them seem genuine, not stereotyped. So restrained is the author, yet so talented, that a low-key but powerful scene toward the end of the book sneaked up on me: I found that I had tears running down my face as I read. I miss the townspeople and the author's family. I wish I could go back in time and drive to that town and find all of them still there.

This memoir is far superior to the overrated Angela's Ashes; The Jew Store is the book that should have won the Pulitzer Prize.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful as well as enjoyable, June 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Jew Store: A Family Memoir (Hardcover)

The life of the Bronson's in a typical 1920's midsouth rural town is not so different than what many baby boomers experienced as Gentiles in middle America in the 1950's. As I read I could hear in my mind's eye the rhetoric of fear, disapproval and sometimes hate that the good Christians of our town reflected in their covert and even overt behaviors regarding Jews, Blacks, Asians and yes, Catholics. It is not to different than what we hear Southern Baptist Ministers saying about Muslims after 9/11. Suberman's character development of the towns people with which he endured is classically detailed. She brought Ms. Brookie to life for me. I was immediately able to identify the Ms. Brookie in our town. Besides great characters the book taught me a great deal about the phenomenom of a [Jewish] Store. My family routinely shopped in them because they had what farm families needed at the price they could afford. I just didn't know that is what they were. Although most have not survived this midwest rural city of 160,000 folks still have a few and I still shop in them because they still have what I want at the best price. towns. Thank you Ms. Superman for a good read, some nostalgia and a new awareness of the ignorance of many who sit in our town's church pews every Sunday.