The Jew Store, Stella Suberman
The Jew Store, Stella Suberman
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The Jew Store
A Family Memoir

Author: Stella Suberman

Narrator: Donna Postel

Unabridged: 10 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/25/2016


Synopsis

In 1920, in small-town America, the ubiquitous dry goods store 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 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 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. 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.

About Stella Suberman

Stella Suberman is the critically acclaimed author of the popular memoirs The Jew Store, When It Was Our War, and The GI Bill Boys. In its starred review, Booklist called The Jew Store "an absolute pleasure," and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that it was "valuable history as well as a moving story." When It Was Our War received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and in another starred review, Kirkus Reviews described it as "Engaging . . . A remarkable story that resonates with intelligence and insight."


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jaline on January 29, 2018

Stella Suberman was 76 years old when her book, “The Jew Store” was published. If that’s not inspiring enough, I urge you to read the book. It is not only inspiring, but utterly charming, fascinating, funny, and filled with one entertaining family anecdote after the other. The pacing of this family......more

Goodreads review by Jessaka on November 11, 2021

What a delightful story, a memoir. I had a hard time putting it down. It takes place in Tennessee in the 1920s. A Jewish family leaves New York to come to the southern town of Concordia, TN. My first thought was, Why. I would have thought that it would have been better to have stayed in New York whe......more

Goodreads review by Kirstin on September 23, 2018

I find books about the Jewish experience fascinating and this family memoir is no exception. It tells the story of a Jewish immigrant family who in the 1920’s moves away from their tight knit Jewish family in New York City to a small Tennessee town where they will be the only Jewish people in order......more

Goodreads review by Anna on January 19, 2013

The title of this book drew me in, as soon as I saw it. In the small city where I lived as a child( in Canada) there was a store that my parents called de Joden Winkel, which is Dutch for "the Jew Store". I always thought it was just the Dutch community that called it that, and thought it was somewh......more