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Installation of 2010-11 Executive Board

 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 -

  •  Hadassah Hospitals in Israel
  •  Young Judaea
  •  Youth Aliyah
  •  other worthwhile programs

     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

    Read all about out local activities in our Hadassah Highlights ... Jan-March 2009 BULLETIN

    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 best date looks like Tuesday, September 21st. We'll meet at 7:30 at Barnes and Noble on Kingston Pike.

     

     

    THE JEW STORE

    A Family Memoir

    By Stella Suberman

    Denver Post Review:

    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 Concordia. "'Maybe they learned Jews were not ogres, that Jews were not strange, or villainous. Maybe some of the stereotypes fell away.''