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, CACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
After retiring in 1995 as a publicist, Suberman returned for the first time to her birthplace, a small town in northwestern Tennessee. She decided to recount, using fictionalized names and places, her Jewish family's 11 years in that small town, from 1922 to 1933. The author's father, Aaron Bronson, a Jew orphaned from birth in pre-revolutionary Russia, immigrated to New York City. Eventually, he moved his family to rural Tennessee, where he opened up Bronson's Low-Priced Store. Since the Bronsons were the first Jews in town, residents referred to their business as the "Jew Store." Writing with a personal passion (with chapters on "The Bar Mitzvah Question" and "New York Aunts"), Suberman captures the trials her family faced and positive human relationships they formed while trying to adapt to an alien, closed, Southern Christian society. Her interesting, undocumented personal narrative puts a personal face on Ewa Morawska's scholarly social history, Insecure Prosperity: Small Town Jews in Industrial America, 1890-1940 (Princeton Univ., 1996). Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Charles C. Hay, Eastern Kentucky Univ. Archives, RichmondCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The Washington Post Book World, Jonathan Groner
Suberman, like many memoirists, goes wrong in assuming that the reader cares about the daily details of her family life--the visits of some aunts from New York, for example, or various sententious dinner-table conversations. The Jew Store, however, still represents a significant chapter in our understanding of the history of the American South.


From Booklist
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. Her parents, poor Jews from the shtetls of Eastern Europe, first made their way to New York City, then boldly down to Tennessee where they hoped to establish a dry-goods business, the so-called Jew store. Upon arriving in the town Suberman calls Concordia, the young family was instantly taken in by the town's most independent woman, Miss Brookie, who proved to be an essential ally in helping them to launch Bronson's Low-Priced Store and to pass muster with the local chapter of the Klan. Although Suberman's father took to Concordia like the proverbial fish to water, her mother suffered mightily from a debilitating sense of isolation, but both were bighearted people who met anti-Semitism and racism head-on and ultimately did much to improve the life of the town. As Suberman illuminates this little-known facet of southern Jewish American culture, she offers fresh insights into the dynamics of one small town, where community spirit overcame prejudice. An absolute pleasure on all fronts. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
In this first book by a retired book reviewer for the Miami Herald, Suberman recounts the story of her family's sojourn as the only Jews in a rural Tennessee town in the 1920s. When Aaron and Reba Bronson arrived in Concordia, Tenn., (Suberman changed the town's name for the book) in 1920 to establish a dry-goods store, the hamlet had a population of 5,318 and the expectations of more to come when a new shoe factory was slated to open shortly after. Of those 5,318, almost all were God-fearing Christians of one denomination or another. The vast majority had never seen a Jew but ``knew'' that the Jews had horns and had killed Jesus. Yet the response of the town to the presence of the Bronsons turns out to be, for the vast majority, a bemused tolerance growing in many cases into outright love. When the Depression threatens the town, it is Aaron who proves to be the best ``Christian'' of them all, simply by being the most resourceful and caring of men. The Jew Store is as much a book about Jewish fear of Christian hostility as a story of overcoming anti-Semitism; Suberman is admirably frank about her mother's fears of the townspeople, which are no less destructive than the few manifestations of genuine hostility. The town is populated with the sort of colorful characters that a novelist dreams of creating, from the Northern-educated wealthy spinster agnostic who befriends the Bronsons to her overbearing, overweight, Klan-loving cousin, who is the local real estate magnate. The book is by turns charming, funny, and moving, artfully but simply written and invested with a warm glow of family love. An admirable debut by Suberman, vividly told and captivating in its humanity. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
The Bronsons were the first Jews to ever live in the small town of Concordia, Tennessee-a town consisting of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware store, one beauty parlor, one barber shop, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. That didn't stop Aaron Bronson, a Russian immigrant, from moving his young family out of New York by horse and wagon and journeying to this remote corner of the South to open a small dry goods store, Bronson's Low-Priced Store. Never mind that he was greeted with "Danged if I ever heard tell of a Jew storekeeper afore." Never mind that all the townspeople were suspicious of any strangers. Never mind that the Klan actively discouraged the presence of outsiders. Aaron Bronson bravely established a business and proved in the process that his family could make a home, and a life, anywhere. With great fondness and a fine dry wit, Stella Suberman tells the story of her family in an account that Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, described as "a gem...Vividly told and captivating in its humanity." Now available for the first time in paperback, here is the book that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said was "forthright. . . . not a revisionist history of Jewish life in the small-town South but . . . written within the context of the 1920s, making it valuable history as well as a moving family story."


From the Back Cover
"A gem... By turns charming, funny, and moving, artfully but simply written and invested with a warm glow of family love." (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) The Bronsons were the first Jews to live in the small town of Concordia, Tennessee - a town consisting of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware store, one beauty parlor, one barber shop, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. That didn't stop Aaron Bronson, a Russian immigrant, from moving his family out of New York by horse and wagon in 1920 and journeying to this remote corner of the South to open a small dry goods store. Never mind that he was greeted with "Danged if I ever heard tell of a Jew storekeeper afore." Never mind that all the townspeople were suspicious of any strangers. Never mind that all the Klan actively discouraged the presence of outsiders. Aaron Bronson bravely established a business, and proved in the process that his family could make a home, and a life, anywhere. With a fine dry wit, Suberman tells the story of her family that the Intermountain Jewish News described as "Moving, funny, scary, and intelligent." The Jew Store is that rare thing - an intimate family story that sheds light on a piece of history and speaks to the immigrant experience of millions of Americans. "Well-stocked with affection...beautifully portrays the complex wed of interconnections and disconnections between blacks and whites, Jews an gentiles, Southerners and Northerners, rural farmers and big city sophisticates." (The Dallas Morning News)


About the Author
STELLA SUBERMAN was born in a small Bible Belt town in Tennessee to which her family had come in 1920 to open a dry goods store, the "Jew store" of the book's title. Her teen years were spent in Florida, where she attended Florida State College for women (now Florida State University) and the University of Miami, studying English literature and art history. From 1946 to 1966, she lived with her husband and son in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, North Carolina, serving as publications chief of the North Carolina Museum of Art and as book reviewer for Raleigh's News & Observer. In 1966, she returned to Florida as the administrative director of the Lowe Art Gallery of the University of Miami and as a staff book reviewer for the Miami Herald. The Jew Store was selected by the National Women's Book Association as one of five recommended books for 2000 and was a selection of the Jewish Book Club. Suberman has been featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation and C-SPAN'S Book TV.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Bronsons were the first Jews ever to live in the small town of Concordia, Tennessee -- a town consisting of one main street, one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed, one hardware store, one beauty parlor, one barber shop, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. That didn't stop Aaron Bronson, a Russian immigrant, from moving his family out of New York by horse and wagon in 1920 and journeying to this remote corner of the South to open a small dry goods store.

Never mind that he was greeted with "Danged if I ever heard tell of a Jew storekeeper afore." Never mind that all the townspeople were suspicious of any strangers. Never mind that the Klan actively discouraged the presence of outsiders. Aaron Bronson bravely established a business, and proved in the process that his family could make a home, and a life, anywhere.

With a fine dry wit, Suberman tells the story of her family that the Intermountain Jewish News described as "Moving, funny, scary, and intelligent." The Jew Store is that rare thing -- an intimate family story that sheds light on a piece of history and speaks to the immigrant experience of millions of Americans.

FROM THE CRITICS

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.

Library Journal

After retiring in 1995 as a publicist, Suberman returned for the first time to her birthplace, a small town in northwestern Tennessee. She decided to recount, using fictionalized names and places, her Jewish family's 11 years in that small town, from 1922 to 1933. The author's father, Aaron Bronson, a Jew orphaned from birth in pre-revolutionary Russia, immigrated to New York City. Eventually, he moved his family to rural Tennessee, where he opened up Bronson's Low-Priced Store. Since the Bronsons were the first Jews in town, residents referred to their business as the "Jew Store." Writing with a personal passion (with chapters on "The Bar Mitzvah Question" and "New York Aunts"), Suberman captures the trials her family faced and positive human relationships they formed while trying to adapt to an alien, closed, Southern Christian society. -- Charles C. Hay, Eastern Kentucky University Archives, Richmond

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

Marisa Kantor Stark

Like the story, 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

Chicago Tribune