The Jew Store

by Stella Suberman

"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.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Jewish, History, Biography, Book Club, Judaism

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 1998

Reviews

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 saga kept me picking it back up as soon as I could after having to set it down to take care of life’s necessary distractions – like sleep, for instance. The characters are extremely well-drawn, as only a family saga could elicit. Each of the family members have their own unique perspectives on life, and their own specific eccentricities as well as other endearing qualities.

Stella’s father’s story is fascinating as it began in the Ukraine when it was part of Russia. Even as a young lad he was resourceful and his experience working in a store gave him the confidence to start his own after he immigrated to the United States. He had been told he was “a born sa-les-man” and he was determined to live up to that. (His particular language quirk was to pronounce as many syllables in longer words as he could fit in!)

Stella’s mother’s family landed in New York and made up their minds to stay in New York. However, Stella’s father wanted to see what it was like “further South” and through his mazel (more or less the ability to attract positive serendipitous events – and doesn’t mazel just cover that so much neater?), the young family ended up in a small rural town in north-eastern Tennessee where he was able to set up his own store – the “Jew Store”, as they were called in these rural centers throughout the country.

Stella’s father was the visionary of the family, and Stella’s mother was the cautionary. She famously spoke with mixed metaphors that were delightful to read. I love mixed metaphors but in their creation I am nowhere near the caliber of greatness of Stella’s mother. For instance: while visiting neighbours, it was obvious that the elder couple in the household saw them as a sideshow and were waiting for them to “perform”. When Stella’s mother attempted to make conversation, she said that her words “went in one ear and out the door!” It cracked me up – and I can see I need much more practice before I could ever compete on her level.

Through Stella Suberman’s talented writing, I was pulled into their story heart and soul, mind and emotions. My one regret is that I did not read this book sooner as it has been on my eReader since I bought it in 2015. Had I read it sooner, I would have been able to write a fan letter to this amazing woman who passed away last year (2017) at the age of 95. After her third book was published when she was 90 in 2012 she said she probably wouldn’t write another one because she felt she had said everything she wanted to say. Somehow, someway I am determined to read it all.

[Jessaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 where the racism and bigotry may not have been as bad, where they would still have a synagogue, a Jewish population, and Jewish friends, but then I realized that the father, Aaron Bronson couldn’t find work in New York, so the move.

He opened up a dry goods store, which back then was called a Jew Store, not to be confused with other stores that the Jewish people ran or owned. In the 1950s where I grew up, there was a five and dime store that a Jewish couple owned. I used to walk in there when I was a kid, and the woman would follow me around. I hated being watched, but she was afraid of shop lifters. I know my friend Mary and I went in there together and used to giggle about it afterwards. Then when they left the store to go out for lunch or for whatever other reason, Mrs. Kramer, would walk several steps behind her husband. I then asked my older sister if she remembered them. “Yes, Ole Mean Kramer. She used to follow me around the store and would say, ‘Don’t touch the merchandise.’” How sad for kids to all remember her this way, and when I sister repeated her words, don’t touch the merchandise, I remembered that as well. We never knew anymore about them or what they were doing in our small California town. Did they feel as Mrs. Bronson had, lonely, or did they have a synagogue in San Luis Obispo where they could attend? I asked my friend Mary, but she only remembers that the store closed due to lack of business. She thought they could have had a son.

We had another dime store in town that I loved and used to frequent. I look back and wish that items were still in wooden trays on counters and not wrapped in plastic. Like Mrs. Kramer knew, people steal, so now the plastic. Now that I am old, I wonder who they were and how they felt. I called the Historic Society, and they said that they would look it up.

This story follows the Bronson’s lives and that of their children, just like the old Doris Day movie, On Moonlight Bay, or like Wind at my Back, the Canadian TV series that I loved so much I bought the complete set, including the Doris Day movie.

And while the town was racist, they finally fit in, but I could never tell if Mrs. Bronson ever had completely. They were racist and bigoted as well, and objected to one of their daughter’s wanting to marry a gentile, and my heart broke for the girl, because she was so much in love and he was such a nice man. I only hope that after moving back to New York, and after she married a Jewish man that she was happy. I don’t know if I could have ever forgiven my mother if she had done something like that. Some things you just don’t get over.

They also have dealings with the KKK. Mr. Bronson had hired a black man for a clerk, but the town wouldn’t allow it, and so he had to do as the town wished, but while he let him go, he found other work for him to do. This happens even today, and I hate it. Here where I live, blacks don’t own stores, and the black church can’t get a permit to build a better church. If a gay person owns a store, which they have done, they lose customers; the store folds. Such in American life in the South.

Notes: They need to make this book into a movie. I understand that back in 1999 Dolly Parton bought the rights to the movie, buy so much for her making the movie. It is at least a musical. I should ask our Playhouse here to find the script. You never know. Maybe they will have a play.

http://variety.com/1999/film/news/par...

There is also a video on line about the author and her book:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?121947-...

[Jan Rice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that, if I walked around with it, people would look at me funny.

It is a memoir of the sojourn of the author's family in a small Tennessee town about 90 years ago. The author's age coincides with my parents'. In fact, my mother grew up in Tennessee, but the circumstances were different. Stella Suberman's parents had immigrated from Russia with their parents at a young age, while my grandparents were all born in this country. My mother's ancestors weren't all from Germany, but maybe they had been wending that way from points east; at any rate they had gotten here early. My great-grandfather had a store in Chattanooga, but by the next generation they were professionals. The rural one-street town to which the author's family moved and opened their store seems long ago and far far away--maybe less so to readers less distant from their agrarian roots.

A Jew store: the going name for a dry-goods low-cost store, owned and operated by a Jew, and that served the farmers, factory workers, and African Americans--then Negroes.

The author's father was an energetic man with his own version of the power of positive thinking. He guided the family from New York to Tennessee in search of the kind of economic opportunity that suited him.

The book is written in a simple and guileless manner and in a matter-of-fact tone. At first I couldn't put my finger on it, but I think it's an absence of judgment. There is no moralizing in this book. She is not looking down her nose at any of those who populate these pages.

The author captures the speech patterns of both the New York immigrants and the rural southerners. Since I grew up without any Yiddish-speaking grandparents or the like (in fact, without any extended family), I got to learn some new expressions from this book. For example: mazel and shlimazel--luck and luckless. I might have heard those in the last few years, but if so I didn't remember. And how about this: balehbusteh, meaning expert housewife!

Then there was my favorite, transliterated tokhes afhen tish in the book, but, elsewhere, tuches oifen tish, and literally meaning, "buttocks on the table." In the book, the meaning is "put up or shut up." Elsewhere, its meaning is given as "let's get to the facts" or "let's get to the bottom line." But, then, it changes again, to, "Show me the proof." (In New York, there's an Orthodox Jewish detective agency by that name, according to this write-up.) But the reason it was my favorite was that I thought it expressed an element of risk, of going for it, or of playing your best hand. And maybe that's so!

The author's name even sounds like "Superman."

Here are a few quotes illustrating the author's down-to-earth and plain-spoken style when dealing with potentially difficult topics:

...Only in the high cheekbones did she share family traits. ... In many ways they were Slavic traits. The fact was, of course, that my family's looks--my father's light coloring, his and Miriam's high cheekbones, the short features and full lips of Joey and my mother--were influenced not by the Semitic races but by the Slavs, the Cossacks who had been busy for generations in my parents' shtetls. My father would on occasion refer to this. "Can you beat it?" he would say. "Us Cossacks showing up in the U.S. of A, state of Tennessee...." To which my mother would say nothing, pretending ignorance.

Oh, yes, and the parents see at once the shared identity between the shtetls they came from and the black ghetto part of town.

Speaking further of those Cossacks:

Why the disguises? Even the Cossacks didn't wear disguises.

Ku Kluxers, in order to inspire fear, had to operate differently from the Cossacks. Cossacks had only to be Cossacks in order to intimidate. They were tough soldiers who lived in barracks. Kluxers, being the guy next door, had to don sheets with eye-holes to transform the man who delivered your milk into something that could scare somebody.

Finally, the author's family waits in suspense to see if they will indeed be able to open their store:

This time all Miss Brookie said was, "We'll have to wait and see.

There was reason for her unwillingness to make a prediction. The opinion about Jews, not just among the Klan but among the town's general population, was very unsettled. On the one hand there was "this doggone international conspiracy," as people said, among Jewish bankers to control the world and those "infernal orders" Jews were under to kill all Christian babies. And of course there was the worst charge of all--that Jews had killed their Lord.

On the other hand there were the mitigating factors: the fact that their Lord was born Jewish and the fact that their Old Testament told them that Jews were God's chosen people. All this back and forthing, as Miss Brookie would have said, put their britches in a pretty serious knot.

There needed to be a 3 1/2-star rating for this book. I went up half a star from my original "three" while reading about the author in preparation for the review, but eventually settled back down to the three, which is what it should be.

Her book was published when she was 76 years old, in 1998, and in 2003 she came out with another one about the war years. And now Amazon says there is a third, about the GI Bill generation, and reportedly released in 2012. I actually might want to read that last one. She would have been 90.

[thewanderingjew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am learning so much from this book, which is someone else's memoir, as it informs me about my early Jewish heritage and the plight of my parents. It is written with such warmth and written so well that it often makes me smile with remembrance and understanding as my life experience's parallel those in the book. I wish all people could read it and get the same joy from it that it is providing me.
I do not know much about the background of my parents so this is especially interesting to me as I read about the immigrant experience, the Jewish customs and the assimilation process. I am having many "aha" moments.
I now understand why my mom interpreted her Jewishness to be one of customs and traditions and why, when I asked my mother-in-law why she did something, she told me she had no idea! I now understand why my father told me to follow my husband wherever he went and to always subsume my needs to those of his. The book made me less angry about certain incidents in my life because the simple reasons that inspired them were steeped in love and concern, not rigidity or blind faith.
The book tells the tale of a family that moves to a small southern town to be the only Jewish family there. They open up a Jew store and become part of the town but somehow always feel outside of it. Their simple way of accepting what life presented, sustained and nurtured them.

[Kirstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 to have the opportunity to have a dry goods store of their own. It is a great “American Dream” story and the dreamer is not only a driven and hardworking man but also a great family man who truly loves his wife and children and only wants the best for them. I had a little bit harder time with the mother. Though I could greatly sympathize with how difficult it would be to in her situation I did occasionally find her attitudes and actions a bit frustrating. It was interesting to see how her identity was so tied to being Jewish despite her seeming indifference to the actual religion and how that affected her relationship with her new community and how it affected her children as they developed far more “American” attitudes being raised among Gentiles. This memoir is easy to read and has a good mix of funny, sweet, touching, inspiring, and heartbreaking moments.

[Mindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in a Jewish family living in a small(-ish) Southern town, I immediately related to this memoir. The author strung together memories and stories in a seamless fashion. She wonderfully captured the feelings of both community and isolation that were constantly at work in the story and that I have seen played out in real life.

Perhaps even more poigant to me were the trials and tribulations of Stella Ruth's father and the family business. My own family owned and operated women's clothing stores in and around the Paducah area. It was interesting to read about the history of an early Jewish business owner living and working in the same area. My grandfather and great-grandfather likely had similar experiences to Stella Ruth's father.

[Sherril · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ½. The Jew Store by Stella Suberman is definitely a book worth reading. It is a book of non-fiction, a memoir that reads like a novel. A story in the 1920’s of a small store merchant, Jewish immigrant who with his family leaves the relative comfort of New York City, crowded with Jewish immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe and Russia to make a new life, like a fish out of water, in the Deep South, where they eventually, more or less find their way. Aaron, the father was born to be a salesman, but he resisted selling from a pushcart in the city. “Selling from a pushcart ain’t selling; it’s arguing,” is what he told his wife, Reba, who was happy to be in the city with “mishpucha” (family) and living in a building with mostly other Jews and only a smattering of gentiles, who they had little to do with. They had left Russia where they suffered antisemitism from the Cossacks and felt relatively accepted in the crowded city of New York. But Aaron convinces Reba, the mother, for the sake of their two children to venture out to make a success of their lives. The convincing was not an easy task. They schlepped to Tennessee by way of Nashville and Savanna. Aaron, filled with optimism, told his wife to celebrate.“My mother answered that what with two days on the train and now the schlepping, they were lucky that instead of dead they were just tired.” Once in Concordia, Tennessee (the name of the town, county and individuals in the story were charged to keep some modicum of privacy for the town’s people), Aaron set on his mission to find a store, which would be called by all, The Jew Store. Though this sounds offensive to modern ears, “That’s what people really called the store—it was the convention. They didn’t know about political correctness in those days; that was just what it was called. The Jew store was where farmhands, sharecroppers, and factory hands could buy inexpensive clothes, piece goods, and linens. Most small towns had a dry-goods store run by a Jewish family—in some cases the only Jews in the town. It was a calling for Jews who moved to the South. Some started out small and their businesses got bigger and bigger over the generations”. The sign on the store read, BRONSON’S LOW-PRICED STORE.

One thing I found entertaining throughout the book was the scattering of Yiddish expressions that came out of the mouths of Reba and Aaron. Most were quite familiar to this reader. I could all but hear the very vocal intonations that I grew up hearing from grandparents and great aunts and uncles. I found myself chuckling throughout. There were Yiddishisms like: mensch (a man who knew his duty and did it) and farshtunken (it stank) and mazel (luck) and mishpocheh, (family) and so many, many more. The author, Stella Suberman, writes with great humor, warmth and intelligence. Do pick up this book.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This endearing family memoir recounts the experiences of a Jewish family in western Tennessee in the 1920s. The KKK abhorred blacks, Jews & Catholics but this family managed to insert themselves in a small southern town and successfully run a "Jew Store" -- an inexpensive dry goods store. The parents, Aaron & Reba Bronson, are Russian immigrants, with very different personalities. The father's positive, can-do attitude and natural salesmanship allows him to thrive as a businessman, but he is less interested in religion. The mother tends toward depression and constantly worries about the lack of other Jewish families or Jewish cultural influence on her children.

The book explores the stresses and strains within and outside the family. There are wonderful characters, such as Miss Brookie, a college educated, liberally minded independent woman who helps the Bronson family settle into Concordia, TN. At one point Reba learns to garden and put up her own vegetables. She finds a "volunteer" azalea growing in her garden. Miss Brookie tells her, "Volunteers are always a teensy bit different from cultivated plants. Or so it seems. Anyway, that's what makes them so fascinating, don't you know". (p 167) The Bronson's are volunteers among the the natives in Concordia and, as such, are fascinating to the community.

This book explores with affection and thoughtfulness the challenges faced by immigrants to America, the impact of Americanization on the children of immigrants, the forces that hold a family together or pull it apart, the role of religion, the fault lines between blacks and whites, Jews and Gentiles, Northerners and Southerners, child labor, the impact of the Great Depression, and more. This highly personal story explores the societal issues of the 1920s yet many of the problems and struggles of this family feel very contemporary to the 21st century.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 somewhat derogatory, even as a child. My mom did shop there a lot though, and was on pleasant enough terms with the owner, as far as I could tell. So to find a book with this title was a surprise, and the book certainly did not disappoint. I loved the author's writing style, including the way she narrated the story as though she had been witness to it although part of it happened before her conception. I enjoyed her sense of humor, never sounding as though she had felt oppressed in anyway. I liked her honesty, and speaking in the voice of the days of which she wrote. The book flowed well, and kept me reading and wishing it would have gone on a little longer. Not much more to say, other than, I loved it!

[Cookie M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good nostalgic read about a south that most northern gentiles never knew existed.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truth is, I'm not a lover of memoirs - but this one had some shining moments. There were also places that just didn't capture me. Not because it wasn't good. It was. I just found myself wandering at points. Its interesting subject matter, and the stories were compelling. I always think its brave and important for people to tell their stories, and there is certainly a piece of history here. I could see there were clear moments of excellence. And yet, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Or I wasn't completely in the mood. But I do think its a fascinating piece of history, the role of the Jew Store in the south. A place where one family tries to start a dry goods business smack in the middle of a deep south town, (Concordia), that had never even seen one Jew, not to mention an entire family. Who has to find their way amongst a totally foreign experience. Its the Immigrant Jewish experience meets the American Dream. True melting pot of America. Unusual but poignant piece of our history, a moment that would be otherwise long forgotten.

One moment that grabbed me - similar to another book I read a few years ago, is when mention of the Ku Klux Klan showed up, and how that element worked so openly in society. Like with Laura Morairty's the Chaperone, it was just a moment amongst many. Certainly a detail that almost might have been missed. In just a line or two of The Chaperone, we are witness to a most unusual event. A baseball game between the Ku Klux Klan and The World Negro Federation. Immediately, this caught my attention. What? How on earth did this work? Hard to run the bases or pitch cloaked in sheets, and if they weren't cloaked in sheets - why weren't they just arrested? Everyone knew who they were, they could have just rounded them up. And if the Negroes won, wouldn't there have been lynchings? Maybe even on the spot. Ku Klux Klan playing baseball against blacks. Who ever heard of such a thing? I was so fascinated by the premise of this, that I wrote the author, who sent me the article that fueled this data point. Similarly, in the Jew Store, twice there is mention of the Ku Klux Klan. First, a black man is hovering outside the store but won't come in. He is waiting for the Ku Klux Klan to come in and shop. If they shop, and sanction the store with their presence, then the African Americans can shop there too. This was striking to me. Once again, we are not talking about cloaked hidden identities that skulk about at night in sheets. This is every day knowledge folks who walk amongst us, whose power to create death and damage is immense, and yet it goes unchecked. There is no one preserving justice and safety. Its almost an acceptable part of society. They place baseball, they shop and have power to put their stamp of approval on where the rest of society can shop. At the end of the book, their political influence is felt once again. The KKK can decide whether not just a person, but a shop, is worthy and viable. I find this so fascinating. That society somehow sanctioned known prejudice and violence with no recourse or retribution. This was beyond the cloaks. Its out in the open - kind of like today. Where we can see open racism and aggression. Racism and anti semitism becomes publicly sanctioned and socially acceptable. And still we do nothing, even in 2019! I found this really striking.

In any case, thought the book had an important place, and had something important for us to learn about and remember. This was as I said earlier, yet another important moment in history, that if not for a memoir like this, may not have even been remembered.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of memoirs and I almost always enjoy them. Particularly meaningful to me are the ones where I feel I have some common experience with the writer. This lively story of Russian Jewish immigrants (as was one branch of my family) who started out in New York and then moved to Tennessee is told with sweetness and humor and addresses the difficulties and the triumphs of being completely different, yet not so different, in another world. As we continue to scatter, or to encounter the scattered, there is much to be learned from the responses to that experience no matter upon which side we find ourselves.

[Sharon Huether · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Jewish family settling in the South in Concordia, Tennessee. They were the only Jewish family in town. They opened a general store"Bronson's Low-Priced Store." They did very well and made many friends. When the depression hit they helped another merchant stay afloat.
The story is told by the youngest daughter, Stella and her humorous observations of growing up in the South.

[Hermien · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for the first half of the book but it didn't finish quite as good as it started.

[Mirta Trupp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this ages ago. I'd need to peruse it again before writing a review but, I do remember enjoying the book!

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Suberman writes a sweet, loving memoir of her Jewish Russian immigrant parents and her siblings. Her father, known as Aaron in the book, moves his family from everything and everyone they know and love in NYC to, in 1920, a very rural corner of Tennessee.
The conditions are difficult, discrimination and prejudice are especially directed to Jewish, Catholic and people of color. The Klu Klux Klan is alive and well, approving or disapproving what they choose.
Aaron, however, is a patient and intelligent business man and in just a short period of time his "Jew Store" aka Bronson's Low Priced Store is in business and providing dry goods to farm families in the area.
All is not well with his wife, Reba. She misses the closeness of extended family and doesn't understand the Southern way of life. She laments the fact that there is no Jewish temple for her son to make Bar Mitzvah.
In a light-hearted manner, the author reveals how her family worked through these obstacles with eventual understanding and grace.

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book read for Book Discussion Group

When I first saw the title, "The Jew Store", I was a little put off. I had never heard the term before. Then someone told me that our little town had its own "Jew Store" many years ago and I was intrigued.

Stella Suberman's family moved to a small town in Tennessee before she was born. They left their New York neighborhood and family to start a dry goods store that would cater to the factory workers, sharecroppers and others who were not well-off. Mrs. Bronson had the most difficult time because there was no Hebrew school for Joey to attend and there were no other Jewish people for miles. The story of how this family became (almost) members of a Gentile community and the reason they had to return to New York is a fascinating story. A story that I hadn't heard before but one was probably very common in small towns all over the country.

[Nora Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay… I read it for one of my classes & it was very insightful of being Jewish in a rural small town in the south in the 1920s, but not my favorite memoir.

[Betty Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A charming, bewildering, funny, sad, and ultimately heart warming memoir of being the only Jewish family in a very rural Southern state in the 1920s/1930s. I loved it!

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book club selection and I didn't think it sounded that interesting (let's face it the title is off-putting)-until I picked it up and read it. It is non-fiction, (though it's a memoir so most of the names have been changed, but the fact that it's true made all the difference) it was just fascinating to follow the story of these Jewish immigrants who picked the south as the place to"make their fortune" in the 1920's and 30's. Also, in these economic times, it interesting to see how businesses got through (or didn't get through) the depression. But the most unforgettable parts are about the characters, both the Jewish ones and the various townspeople and their cultures and how they deal with the culture clash. And the book is filled with flamboyant, funny and complex people and great little anecdotes. It's a history lesson disguised as a novel.

[Greg McClay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept thinking as I read this that it was a very American story. Which is probably an odd description but the immigration story, the (almost) American Frontier story, culture clashes and many many examples of the country's growing pains it just all screamed Made in America. It isn't an epic story, I don't mean to say that, huge things don't seem to happen other than that the premise itself must have seemed huge to everyone involved. Its a ten year block of time that clearly had a formative impact on everyone in the family. I'm left feeling kind of bad for the father but he didn't seem like the type to let life get him down for long.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice memoir that calls up an earlier era for both Southern towns and Jewish immigrants. I really wanted to meet some of the people young Stella Ruth Bronson lived among and find out what it was like for them to have her family as neighbors for twelve years, especially Miss Brookie and Lizzie Maud, but they are probably all gone by now.

[Sharon Weinfeld · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish Goodreads had 1/2 stars – this is a 3.5. The depiction of what life was like for Jewish families in the South in the 1920s was interesting, but I didn't care for the author's writing style. Very simplistic.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't even fininsh it. I tried to stay open minded about this book, but it was just plain bad! :(

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoir about a Jewish family moving to remote town in Tennessee to open a dry goods store in the early 1900’s

[Katie Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book! About a Russian-Jewish family who moves to a small town in the Southern US in 1920 to start a store. The author has a charming way of writing and portraying personalities. I also especially loved how she talked rather candidly about many things, both good and bad, but generally refrained from assigning morality. She portrays openly the difficulties of blacks and Jews in their town, but allows you to see the prejudices in her own family as well. It was a story full of life - the good, the bad, the ugly, but all told with an air of hope and love underneath it all. A great read that will leave you a lot to think about!

[Jill Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a memoir but reads very much like a novel. Most memoirs are mostly prose, but this book has a lot of dialogue and that helps bring a lot of heart and warmth to this book.
Having grown up a first generation daughter of a Jewish immigrant shop owner, although not from the South, there was a lot that I could relate to.
The Yiddish phrases really made me laugh remembering the same kind of conversations in my own childhood.

[Jami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audio, and overall I enjoyed it. In addition to learning about the Jewish experience at that time, there is also information re: how Black people were treated. This was one of those books that I appreciated more when I was finished and reflected on it as a whole. There were some slow spots but for the most part it kept my attention and I was invested in the characters.

[Debi Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! A “Family Memoir” of a Jewish family in rural Tennessee in the 1920s. Well written, fully-formed characters, fascinating piece of history. Highly recommended

[Chris Godwaldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, tragic, heart-warming, well-written, and inviting! A great all-around read!