Jew Store

“Suberman tells the remarkable story of her family's sojourn as the only Jews in a small Tennessee town during the 1920s with such sparkle, it reads like a novel. . . . An absolute pleasure on all fronts.”

—
Booklist
, starred review

“Beautifully portrays the complex web of interconnections and disconnections between blacks and whites, Jews and gentiles, Southerners and Northerners, rural farmers and big city sophisticates.”

—
The Dallas Morning News

“Suberman tells her family's story with compassion and humor, in the process bringing to life an obscure bit of Jewish-American history.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“By turns charming, funny, and moving, artfully but simply written and invested with a warm glow of family love.” —
Kirkus Reviews,
starred review

“Stella Suberman describes Concordia's characters so picturesquely it reads like a work of fiction.”

—
Hadassah Magazine

“A memoir that deserves praise not only as a sensitive portrait of the neglected merchant-immigrant families of the South but also for the wry, loving wit that Suberman brings to the craft of remembrance.”

—
The Journal of Southern History

“Poignant, moving, funny, scary, and intelligent. . . . Suberman has told a powerful and transcendent story.” —
Intermountain Jewish News

“An utterly delightful book that perfectly captures a place and time.”

—
Chattanooga Times Free Press

“Like the store, which is practically a character in its own right, the people in
The Jew Store
linger in the mind.” —
The New York Times Book Review

“A significant chapter in our understanding of the history of the American South.”

—
The Washington Post

“A charming contribution to our understanding of a little-known chapter in Southern Jewish history.”

—
The News & Observer
(Raleigh, North Carolina)

“A warm, intelligent portrait of a small town and study of how both insider and outsider prejudice can be overcome. . . . With a faultless ear for Southern dialect and a wry sense of humor, she shows that boundaries on the map are sometimes more easily traversed than those that lurk deep in the heart.”

—
The Bay Guardian

“A perfectly tuned memoir. . . . Engages the reader with its freshness and immediacy. Suberman's characters are comically endearing: set against a vivid landscape, the old world and the new, Jew and Gentile, White and Black collide, retreat, and then cautiously dance around each other in the great American ritual of grudging acceptance.”

—
Reform Judaism

“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.”

—
The Denton Record-Chronicle

“Readers might feel torn as to whether or not the Bronsons should leave the town. But, like the natives of Concordia, they'll come to love this endearing Jewish family, and might not want to let them go.”

—
Jewish Herald-Voice

“Warm and funny and a reminder of how things were in the South when blacks were at the mercy of the Ku Klux Klan, and Jews found acceptance only after years of proving themselves.”

—
The Florida Times-Union

“This forthright memoir is not entirely rosy-hued. . . . But the menace is leavened with Suberman's humor and good will. Hers is not a re -visionist history of Jewish life in the small-town South but is written within the context of the 1920s, making it valuable history as well as a moving story.”—
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A colorful portrait. . . . A charming, fresh look into a facet of American Jewish history seldom written about.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

“A story of a family in an alien world, a reflection that tells us much about the South of the early part of this century, its tribalism, and its tendency to violence.” —
Boca Raton News

“A captivating, sometimes funny, sometimes moving record of Southern Jewish culture and the dynamics of one small Southern town.”

—
Rocky Mount Telegram

“A fascinating look at part of the social fabric of the country.”

—
San Antonio Express-News

“Charmingly captures a piece of American Jewish history that needs to be preserved. . . . We are indebted to Stella Suberman for telling her family's story so well, thus greatly augmenting our knowledge about Jews in the South.”

—
The National Jewish Post & Opinion

“Absorbing. . . . A lovingly told, intimate family story.”

—
Cleveland Jewish News

“There is a wonderful sense of ritual here, and family closeness, that makes this a warm, humorous, engaging story to remember. There are better-than-fiction plot twists, tragedy, and comedy. And there is history from all sides—the South in the 1920s, rural America, merchandising, Jewish family life in a Gentile setting—that has never before been written in Suberman's way.” —
The Daily Oklahoman

“Suberman's fine writing and her ability to record tones and scents as well as images make this a lively and engaging story. . . . This will attract casual readers and serve as a useful auxiliary text in classrooms.”

—
School Library Journal

“Perceptive and infinitely funny, a welcome glimpse into a South gone by, as seen from an unusual viewpoint.”

—
The Anniston Star

“A singularly heart-wrenching, uplifting account of Suberman's parents, a Jewish couple trying to find a place in a small Southern town. . . . A wonderfully nostalgic retelling of one family's struggle to make it— despite the anti-Semitism of the 1920s.”

—
The Courier-Tribune
(Asheboro, North Carolina)

“If I were a Jewish parent, I would place a copy in the hands of my children. It would go far to let them understand their heritage and community from which they came.”

—
Daily Press
(Newport News, Virginia)

“A warm thoughtful portrait of what it once meant to be an immigrant Jew with aspirations in the midst of America.”

—
Lilith
magazine

“
The Jew Store
exposes ideals that tear families apart . . . and inevitably hold them together. It takes a close look at the political, economic, and societal thinking of the early twentieth century. Best, it is a rare golden-key opening to the determinations of survival and how one's most serious determinations can ruin lives. It is a vivid representation of Jewish life in the South. It is wonderful.”

—
ForeWord
magazine

S
TELLA
S
UBERMAN

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

Although this is a true story, I have changed the names of the persons whose story it is as well as the names of the town and county in which their story was set. In so doing, I'd like to think I have offered them at least the gesture of privacy.

Published by
A
LGONQUIN
B
OOKS OF
C
HAPEL
H
ILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
708 Broadway
New York, New York 10003

©1998 by Stella Suberman. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Anne Winslow.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Suberman, Stella.

The Jew store / Stella Suberman.

         p. cm.

   ISBN 1-56512-198-8

   1. Suberman, Stella—Childhood and youth. 2. Jews—

Tennessee— Biography. 3. Jewish business people—

Tennessee—Biography. 4. General stores —Tennessee.

I. Title.

F445.J5S83 1998

976.8'004924'0092—dc21

[B]                                98-20996

                                               CIP

ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-330-4 (paper)
ISBN-10: 1-56512-330-1 (paper)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

FOR JACK

AND

FOR RICK

FOR AREAL BARGAIN,
WHILE YOU'RE MAKING A LIVING,
YOU SHOULD MAKE ALSO A LIFE
.

—
AARON BRONSON

P
ROLOGUE

1 T
HE
D
ESTINATION

2 A
VRAM
P
LOTCHNIKOFF'S
N
EW
N
AME

3 A N
ICE
J
EWISH
G
IRL

4 F
OR
B
ETTER OR FOR
W
ORSE

5 G
OD'S
(S
O TO
S
PEAK
) C
OUNTRY

6 M
ISS
B
ROOKIE'S
C
OUSIN
T
OM

7 X
ENOPHOBIA

8 M
Y
F
ATHER'S
F
ANCY
F
OOTWORK

9 B
RONSON'S
L
OW
-P
RICED
S
TORE

10 G
REEN
E
YESHADES

11 N
O
P
ICNIC

12 O
PENING
D
AY

13 I
N
C
HRIST'S
N
AME
, A
MEN

14 A G
LEAM
I
N
M
Y
M
OTHER'S
E
YE

15 T
WO
S
OCIAL
C
ALLS

16 A H
OUSE AND
N
EIGHBORS

17 M
Y
M
OTHER'S
D
ILEMMA

18 S
ETH'S
N
EW
J
OB

19 N
EW
Y
ORK
A
UNTS

20 T
HE
B
AR
M
ITZVAH
Q
UESTION

21 G
ENTILES

22 J
OEY'S
H
OMECOMING