The Jew Store: A Family Memoir

In 1920, Aaron Bronson moved his family from New York City to Concordia, Tennessee, a small town of 5,318 people, to open Bronson's Low-Priced Store, a dry goods shop locally known as "the Jew store." The Bronsons were the first Jewish family to settle in this remote corner of northwest Tennessee, where a single main street contained one bank, one drugstore, one picture show, one feed and seed store, one hardware store, one barber shop, one beauty parlor, one blacksmith, and many Christian churches. Told by Aaron's youngest child, Stella Suberman, this family memoir traces how a man born into poverty in prerevolutionary Russia and orphaned from birth made his way to America, learned a trade, married, and sought his fortune in a place where Jews were unwelcome. Set during a time when rural America was more peaceful but no less prejudiced, when educated liberals were suspect, and when the Klan threatened outsiders, the narrative brings Aaron's life into focus—a man whose success demonstrates that intelligence, empathy, liberality, and decency can build a home anywhere.