The Jew Store

The Jew Store

by Stella Suberman
The Jew Store

The Jew Store

by Stella Suberman

Paperback

$22.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

"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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781565123304
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date: 09/14/2001
Pages: 316
Sales rank: 285,215
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.88(d)
Age Range: 14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Stella Suberman was born in Union City, Tennessee, the setting for her memoir, The Jew Store, and spent her teens in Miami Beach, Florida. After twenty years in North Carolina, she returned to Florida in 1966 as the administrative director of the Lowe Art Museum of the University of Miami. Now retired, she lives in Boca Raton.

Read an Excerpt

SHE HAD SAID THE UNSAYABLE

In my mother's mind the word Jew used all by itself, nakedly, as it were, was not a word but a curse. She believed it was used only by people who hated Jews. If it had its three letters—its "-ish"—on the end, ah, that made the difference. If I said that someone was a Jew, my mother would ask me, "So what is he? A no-goodnik? A gangster?"

As I have understood it, my mother had come out on the porch at the very moment Miss Brookie had used the phrase "Jew store" on the telephone with Tom Dillon, before my father's meeting with Dillon. Miss Brookie used it as shorthand for the kind of business my father had in mind...but all my mother knew at that moment was that Miss Brookie had said the unsayable—had said "Jew store." — Stella Suberman, from The Jew Store

Table of Contents

Prologue1
1The Destination5
2Avram Plotchnikoff's New Name16
3A Nice Jewish Girl25
4For Better or for Worse31
5God's (So to Speak) Country44
6Miss Brookie's Cousin Tom55
7Xenophobia61
8My Father's Fancy Footwork68
9Bronson's Low-Priced Store82
10Green Eyeshades90
11No Picnic100
12Opening Day112
13In Christ's Name, Amen127
14A Gleam in My Mother's Eye136
15Two Social Calls143
16A House and Neighbors161
17My Mother's Dilemma174
18Seth's New Job184
19New York Aunts197
20The Bar Mitzvah Question217
21Gentiles226
22Joey's Homecoming231
23Miriam's Romance239
24Aunt Hannah's Wedding247
25Concordia's Savior256
26Miriam's Rescue271
27Push Comes to Shove281
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews