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Summary: Our book club favorite
Review: It gave a fascinating glimpse into Jewish and non-Jewish lifein the South in the 1920's, while at the same time making us care verydeeply not only for the Bronson family but for others in the town. I would highly recommend this to book clubs looking for a book that would have general appeal. END
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading
Review: It is exactly the Washington Post's criticism (see above) that makes this book worth the reading. The narrative makes the characters and story come alive in a unique way. Definitely one for Oprah's book club. A marvelous account of families and people struggling to understand one another in the 1920's rural south.
Rating: 
Summary: Made-up Memoir
Review: My main criticism of the author is that so much of what she writes about is really a second-hand memoir. She was too young (or not even born) when the events she writes about occurred. She does evoke a feeling for the lonesomeness of her family in a totally unfamiliar situation, but there are too many disconnected memories that are not very interesting. She deals with all her characters superficially. It just seemed to me an amateurishly written book.
Rating:
Summary: a great book club selection
Review: Our book club selected this book for review and had a great time with it. There were many avenues to explore and lots of good give-and-take. All of us (Jews and non-Jews alike) fell in love with the Bronsons, and were sorry when their story ended. For that matter, all the people in the town and the period the book portrayed came in for a lot of discussion. I would definitely recommend this book for any club that wishes to have a book that is not only really readable but one that opens many areas of discovery.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Overall, this is a wonderful, heartwarming book. Now that Dolly Parton has purchased the movie rights, I am looking forward to seeing on the big screen!
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Summary: Steven Spielberg, this one's for you!
Review: Oy, such a movie this book would make! I'm verklempt just thinking about it. Really, someone should get this to Hollywood. I could not put this book down but at the same time didn't want it to end. It was a memoir from nearly 80 years ago but seemed so contemporary at the same time. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: A lively, readable telling of a fascinating story
Review: Set in rural Tennessee during the 1920s, this affectionate and sparkling memoir nonetheless also emphasizes the racism and xenophobia lurking not too far beneath the smiling surface of a sleepy, pre-Depression southern town. The description of the "immigrant pool" in New York City--and the oppressive working and living conditions that led Suberman's parents to their emigration southward-- is also fascinating. This would make a wonderful movie: the people and their motivations really come to life. While her tone is upbeat and even inspirational, Suberman's vision of the old days doesn't attempt to deny the bad. There's a message for today here: every community is hurt by fear and hatred of strangers; and every community can begin to heal in an atmosphere of tolerance and good-will.
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Summary: SHE'S A NATURAL!
Review: She's my grandma and a writer! What more could you ask for
Rating: 
Summary: A tale of genuine family values versus Jewish assimilation.
Review: Someone once said that acceptance and assimilation in America has done more to destroy the Jewish way of life than all the antisemites since the beginning of time. "The Jew Store" is evidence that there is some truth to that. Born myself to a Russian Jewish immigrant father; and a first generation Jewish mother in post World War II Bronx, I recognized each person in her story as archetypes. Suberman's family is very familiar to me, down to their choice of language, attitudes, and alternately suffocating/ indifferent family ties. Suberman appears to fault her mother Reba for wanting her children to retain Jewish cultural and religious traditions. She is portrayed unfairly as a nervous, sometimes shrewish woman who drove her son away from home just so he could be bar mitvah, and who drove the entire family from an otherwise blissful life in Concordia just to prevent Miriam from marrying a non-Jew. Father Aaron, on the other hand, who was ready to assimilate completely for an easier American way of life for his children, is the hero of her piece. "The Jew Store," is an important tale of genuine family and community values, against a backdrop of the type of situational American values depicted so well by Mark Twain. The character that is most pivotal and interesting, Miss Brookie, is the least explored, probably because she was long dead when Suberman started to write and she had no heirs. What made her open her home and heart so wide to this family? I still want to know!
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Summary: Great History !!
Review: Stella Suberman is sixteen years older than I am, and much of the action in this narrative takes place before she was born. Call it a full generation before me. My recollections are not hers. I conjecture that the differences are perceptual although it is possible that the sociology changed that much in a generation. My town was in Mississippi, although I went to high school in Gibson County Tennessee not far from "Concordia."I don't recall a single dry goods store in my small town (5000 people), and there were several, that was not owned by Jews. They were not ever called "Jew Stores" to my recollection, and until this book set me to thinking, I had never remarked the fact that no goyim were in the dry goods business in small town Mississippi. Maybe that says more about my "raisin'" than about the sociology of my town, but I can recall no overt discrimination *against* jews until I grew up and moved to New York. Years later, it came to my attention that there was a "jewish discount" among the merchants in Mississippi that was not extended to goyim, but that is another investigation for another time. I am intrigued with the fact that the Bronson family encountered such intense discrimination so shortly before I became sentient. Stella Suberman's account, although filtered through the perception of her parents, rings true, and reads like a novel. We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. Assuming that assimulation is our goal.
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