Knoxville Chapter
www.knoxville.hadassah.org -for up-to-date information
Bonnie Boring, 2009-2010 President
Knoxville's Hadassah chapter was established in 1927 and has over 310 members representing women from the total Jewish community including both Temple Beth El and Heska Amuna Synagogue. Each year Knoxville Hadassah raises over $13,000 to support -
Monthly meetings held at the Arnstein JCC focus on -
-
Health awareness
-
Humanitarian relief
-
Jewish education
-
Support of Israel
For more information, contact Bonnie Boring via email bonnieb@buildabear.com
ABOUT HADASSAH
|
HADASSAH, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, is a volunteer women's organization, whose members are motivated and inspired to strengthen their partnership with Israel, ensure Jewish continuity, and realize their potential as a dynamic force in American society. Founded in 1912, Hadassah retains the passion and timeless values of its founder, Henrietta Szold, Jewish scholar and activist, who was dedicated to Judaism, Zionism, and the American ideal. Committed to the centrality of Israel based on the renaissance of the Jewish people in its historic homeland, Hadassah promotes the unity of the Jewish people. In Israel, Hadassah initiates and supports pace-setting health care, education and youth institutions, and land development to meet the country's changing needs. In the United States, Hadassah enhances the quality of American and Jewish life through its education and Zionist youth programs, promotes health awareness, and provides personal enrichment and growth for its members. |
Hadassah Highlights
Oak Ridge Hadassah
Contact Evelyn Blau by email or phone -865-531-7345.
Current Knoxville Hadassah Events
BOOK CLUB
The next Hadassah book club book will be The Jew Store by Stella Suberman. Because of the holidays, and changes in meeting times, the date has been changed to Tuesday, September 28th. We'll meet at
THE JEW STORE
A Family Memoir
By Stella Suberman
Make no mistake. Author Stella Suberman is no slave to the P.C. crowd."I don't try to be politically correct,'' ... "I just tell the truth. Just tell it like it is.
That's exactly what the retired University of Miami Museum publicist does in her first book, "The Jew Store,'' her richly peopled and detailed memoir about the life of a Jewish family living in the rural South during the early 20th century.
In 1922, the Bronsons - Aaron, Reba and their four children - moved to "Concordia,'' a small, provincial town in northwestern Tennessee. There, Aaron, an optimistic Russian immigrant with experience in the dry-goods business, opened Bronson's Low-Priced Store, known to locals as a Jew Store.
Jew Store?
"That's right. A Jew Store,'' says Suberman, in her slight Tennessee drawl.'' Jew Stores catered to the poorer element in small Southern towns. To blacks. To farmhands, sharecroppers, factory hands. That's what a Jew Store did.''
For 11 years, the Bronsons struggled to find their place as the first Jewish family in a closed, Southern Christian town, where black folks are impoverished and discriminated against, where the Klan shows up routinely at every town function and festivity. Where virtually none of the townsfolk has ever laid eyes on a Jew, but "know'' they have horns and killed Jesus.
Still, lasting friendships were made.
But Suberman's mother, Reba, yearned for a Jewish education for her children, and for Jewish husbands for her three daughters. In 1933, when Suberman was 11, the family gave up small-town life and returned to New York.
"Despite the fact that we had neighborhood friends, my mother never really felt like an insider'' in Tennessee, Suberman says. "There were no Jews for miles around.''
But Aaron Bronson and his children came to regard "Concordia'' as home. "There was all kinds of good stuff going on in that town,'' she says.
In a quiet moment, she considers the impact her family might have had on the small town of
Copyright © 2010 The Jewish Federations of North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use