Flossie Ginsberg Arnold and her son, Norman Arnold, discuss their family history. Flossie and her parents, Isaac and Pauline Ginsberg, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Russia around 1908, when Flossie was about one year old. Flossie recalls living on Hanover Street in the neighborhood they referred to as “Little Mexico,” where her family owned a small grocery store. Ultimately, the Ginsbergs moved to a home on Ashley Avenue and Isaac opened I. Ginsberg, Inc., on Meeting Street, selling cigars, candy, and notions. Flossie was working behind the cash register when her future husband, Ben Arnold, walked in. Charleston was a port of call for the Clyde Line steamer Ben was taking to New York from Florida, where he operated drugstores in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach. Flossie and Ben married in 1928 and shortly after, moved from Florida to Charleston, lured by the presence of family and a Jewish community, and Isaac’s offer to include Ben in the family business. Isaac and Ben developed a wholesale tobacco and drugstore enterprise with locations in several South Carolina cities, including Columbia, the state capital. Ben ran the Columbia store, which they expanded to include liquor. Around 1940 Flossie, Ben, and their son, Arnold, moved to the capital city, and in the mid-’40s, Isaac and Ben split up the business, Isaac keeping the tobacco distributorship, and Ben assuming full control of the liquor operation.
Harold Marion Aronson, born in Lane, South Carolina, in 1919, grew up in New Jersey, but returned with his family to South Carolina where they opened a dry goods store in Kingstree. Harold, who flew weather reconnaissance missions for the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, married Rose Louise Rich in 1944 and, later, settled in Rose Louise’s hometown, Orangeburg, South Carolina. The Aronsons established a successful aluminum awning business and raised two daughters.
Edward Mirmow and Rose Louise Aronson, who grew up in Orangeburg, recall the city’s Jewish families, descendants of German and Russian immigrants, and the types of stores they operated, dating to the 1930s. Edward’s paternal relatives, the Mirmowitzes and the Goldiners, emigrated from Russia around the turn of the 20th century. In the 1950s, Rose led an effort to organize a congregation for the benefit of Orangeburg’s Jewish children, including her two daughters, and Temple Sinai was founded.
Rose Louise Aronson was raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the great-granddaughter of Moritz Rich who, with his brother Lipman, emigrated from Prussia before the Civil War and settled successively in Charleston, St. Matthews, and Orangeburg. About 1890, her maternal grandfather, Louis Leopold Block, a German immigrant, joined the Hirsch brothers in their dry goods business in Camden. In the 1950s, Rose Louise was instrumental in organizing Temple Sinai, Orangeburg’s Jewish congregation.
Zerline Levy Williams Richmond and her children, Arthur Williams and Betty Gendelman, recount the Levy and Williams family histories, including Zerline’s mother’s stint as Charleston’s first female rice broker, and the Williamses’ kindergarten on George Street. The Williams family were members of Charleston’s Reform temple, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim.
Avram Kronsberg, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1936, was interviewed on April 4, 2001, with his son Edward, and again, by himself, in a follow-up session on April 11, 2001. Avram and his younger brother, Jonathan, are the sons of Hattie Barshay and Edward Kronsberg. Avram recounts the Barshay and Kronsberg family histories. He describes how his father came to Charleston and began working for his uncle Joseph Bluestein; then, during the Great Depression, opened his own store in the Bluestein building on King Street. Edward's mother, Lena Jacobson Kronsberg, widow of Abraham Kronsberg, and his three brothers, Meyer, Milton, and Macey, followed him to Charleston, and the brothers joined him in the business, Edward's Five and Ten Cent Store. Avram describes his parents' personalities and their reputation in the eyes of both Jews and gentiles in Charleston. Hattie and Edward, both civically active, were assimilated to such a degree that the Kronsbergs were told by fellow Jews that they had too many gentile friends. Avram attended Charleston Day School, a private academy in downtown Charleston, where he befriended a number of Christian schoolmates, in addition to the small circle of Jewish friends approved of by Hattie. Avram sought to follow in and exceed his father's footsteps but was firmly directed in his life choices by Hattie. "I tried to do what my father did, but I tried to live my life the way my mother wanted me to." Avram's son Edward notes how Hattie's strength of character influenced the whole family, including his mother, Avram's first wife, Marlene Alfred, and Edward himself, who never met his grandmother. Avram considers how Charleston has changed since he was a boy; what was once a small town where you recognized everyone you passed on the street is now a big impersonal city. Edward, born in 1966 and also raised in Charleston, agrees it's not the same city he grew up in. The interviewees share their perceptions of the differences between two groups referred to by locals as Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. They tell stories of elite local clubs either blackballing Jews or allowing only one Jew in. Avram remarks on what he sees as an increase in traditional practices in Conservative and Reform Judaism. He regrets not raising his youngest son, Tilghman, in a religion: "Everybody has to have an identity." Avram's father and uncles were founders of Emanu-El, Charleston's Conservative synagogue. Hattie had wanted to attend K.K. Beth Elohim, the Reform congregation, but Edward would not agree, so they compromised by choosing Conservative. Hattie and Edward kept kosher, to an extent, and differed in their adherence to the rules. Avram discusses the evolution of his father's business, particularly, the new (1949) large building at 517 King Street in Charleston; the opening of their first integrated Edward's in Orangeburg in 1969; the chain store's growth after World War II; Max Lehrer, Edward Kronsberg's right-hand man; the development of Pinehaven Shopping Center in North Charleston; why the company faltered and how they sold it. Avram shares the personal struggles he has weathered and how, in recent years, he has changed the way he lives and his outlook on life. He deliberates over the issue of race relations when he was growing up, revealing the attitudes of his friends and acquaintances toward black people, as well as his own. He recalls his father's peers in business were segregationists and remarks, "I work in an environment full of rednecks." Avram describes his father's response to the hospital workers' strike in Charleston in 1969, when protesters blocked the entrance to his store. African Americans worked in the Edward's stores and in the Kronsberg home. Avram remembers that the family's relationship with its black employees was contingent on the circumstances: "Always inside together; rarely outside together." The interview covers a variety of additional topics, including: the Folly Beach summer house that the Kronsbergs shared with other families in the 1930s; Avram's memories of 1940s wartime activities, locally; Charleston's kosher restaurants and markets; attending a John Birch Society meeting in the late 1960s; the multi-generational history of the Mo?se family of Sumter, South Carolina; and Avram's recollections of Elihu Mazo, Abe Dumas, Jack Krawcheck, Morris Sokol, Robert Rosen, Jimmy Brynes, and Mendel Rivers. For related interviews, see Frederica Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-097; Jonathan, Edward, and Jason Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-531 and Mss. 1035-532; Barbara Barshay, Max Brener, William Brener, and Jane Barshay Burns, Mss. 1035-524 and Mss. 1035-525.
John Baker, born in 1955 in Columbia, South Carolina, recounts the history of Baker & Baker, the law practice turned real estate development firm established by his father, David Baker, and his father's first cousin, Lee Baker, after World War II. David married JoAnn Schreiber of Brunswick, Georgia, and they raised five children in Columbia. Growing up Jewish, John remarks that although the Bakers were not very observant, they were intensely proud of their heritage. He and his twin brother, Frank, became bar mitzvahs in a double ceremony at Tree of Life Synagogue, attended by prominent South Carolina politicians, including Strom Thurmond, who knew David Baker through his civic engagement. John notes his admiration for his paternal grandmother, Clara Kligman (Kligerman) Baker, a Polish immigrant who ran a grocery store in Columbia. After earning his business degree from the University of South Carolina, the interviewee worked for real estate developer Walter Keenan. In 1979 John joined his father and Lee Baker in their firm as a property manager. Twelve years later he married Marcie Stern of Columbia; they have a daughter, Gabrielle. In the mid-1990s John and Lee Baker's son-in-law, Steven Anastasion, took over daily operations at Baker & Baker. John discusses his support of Israel and describes his involvement in the local community. The transcript contains corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
Leon Banov, Jr., a retired proctologist at the time of this interview, was the grandson of Alexander Banov, an emigrant from Poland who ran a dry goods store in Red Top, South Carolina, a small, rural community a few miles from Charleston. Alexander’s son, Leon Sr., who was eight years old when he arrived in America, attended Charleston’s Orthodox synagogue, Brith Sholom, but received his confirmation instruction from Ellen de Castro Williams, a woman of Sephardic ancestry and member of the Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE). Leon Jr. credits her with starting the first Orthodox Sunday school in South Carolina, and his father was a member of its first confirmation class. To show his appreciation for Mrs. WiIliams’s efforts, Leon Sr. gave her a napkin holder shaped as a deer from his family’s modest collection of silver pieces. She, in turn, gave the napkin ring to Leon Sr.’s son, the interviewee, upon the occasion of his bar mitzvah. Thus began a tradition whereby the deer is passed down alternately to a descendant of the Banov and Williams families as a gift to a new bar or bat mitzvah. Leon Sr., a pharmacist and an M.D., became the first health director of the Charleston County Health Department in 1920, a position he held for forty-one years. He recorded his experiences in As I recall: the story of the Charleston County Health Department. He married Minnie Monash, whose family was from Germany and practiced Reform Judaism. The couple raised their three children in the Reform tradition and attended KKBE. Leon Jr. discusses his siblings and reports that he did not experience any antisemitism growing up. He organized the first cub scout pack in Charleston and received several honors for his involvement in and promotion of the Boy Scouts of America, including the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in 1989. His numerous contributions to the medical community include serving on an advisory panel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and acting as chairman of the Charleston County Board of Health. He also recalls certain former KKBE rabbis and describes how he met his wife, Rita Landesman. Note: the transcript contains comments made by members of the Banov family during proofing.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1908, expands upon the stories she shared in her first interview. A daughter of Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg, of Vitebsk Gubernia, Belarus, Russia, she talks about her mother’s family and her parents’ wedding, which took place in the Old Country. She notes that her father worked in the Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa before the marriage. Edna reads from some of her writings about life in the Jewish neighborhood of upper King and St. Philip streets when she was growing up. The Ginsbergs were strictly kosher and Edna describes their diet and the meals her mother cooked. She tells a number of stories, including how the family didn’t know her birth date and how her father disciplined her when she was a young girl for taking something that didn’t belong to her. Edna remembers an African American woman they called Old Suzy, who worked for the Sam Banov family for years, Edna’s in-laws, and later worked for Edna and her husband, Milton Banov. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, in the third of three interviews, talks about her father-in-law, Sam Banov and his men’s store on the corner of King and Spring streets in Charleston, South Carolina. Sam, who emigrated from Russia by way of England, dispensed a number of home remedies from his shop, which Edna describes here and in her first interview. She reads from her memoirs a passage she wrote about Suzy, an African American woman who worked for the Banovs for decades. The interviewee discusses the cake-baking business she started with Hattie Kronsberg that targeted homesick Citadel freshmen, and notes that she “started the first market research business in Charleston.” Edna recalls childhood memories of shnorrers, Jewish men collecting for charities, coming through town, and Yom Kippur services held in Brith Sholom, one of Charleston’s Orthodox synagogues. She had difficulty relating to Orthodox religious practices and “felt more at home” in the Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, organized in 1947. She and her husband, Milton Banov, were among the founding families; she explains the motivations of those families in leaving Brith Sholom and offers details about her own spiritual practices. Edna is joined near the end of the interview by Beatrice “Beatsie” Bluestein Solow, a cousin, and the two briefly reminisce. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
