Father Avram Kronsberg (b. 1936) and son Edward Kronsberg (b. 1966) discuss their family history, and their varying perspectives on being both Jewish and in Charleston, South Carolina, society. Avram's grandparents, Abraham and Lena (Jacobson?) Kronsberg, immigrated to the USA in the 1870's, settling on Tilghman Island in the Chesapeake Bay, near Baltimore, MD. Upon Abraham's death in 1917, Avram's father Edward came to work in Charleston with his mother's sister's husband, a member of the Bluestein family. He married Hattie Barshay, whose parents Emanuel and Lena Barshay, from Riga, Latvia, settled on Johns Island, SC, and planted cotton until crops were destroyed by the boll weevil. The Barshays opened a small store on King Street in Charleston, as did Edward Kronsberg, who became very successful, starting with a five and ten cents store. The business eventually grew to a chain of 36 stores (mostly called Edward's) in South Carolina and Georgia. Avram Kronsberg states that the Edward's Store in Orangeburg opened just at the time of the SC State student unrest, and became the first truly integrated store in the state, with integrated staff and facilities. The Kronsberg family developed Pinehaven Shopping Center, the first such facility in the Charleston area, and Avram's father became a civic leader and benefactor. Both he and Avram served as president of the Chamber of Commerce and the Carolina Art Association, among other offices. Hattie Kronsberg wanted to belong to the more socially prominent Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, but her husband decided on the conservative Emanu-El Synagogue, of which his brother Macey was a founder. Edward Kronsberg talks about the social acceptance enjoyed by Thomas J. Tobias and of how he resigned from the Carolina Yacht Club when he realized he was the token Jew there. He also speaks of the black balling of his first wife Marlene by the Charleston Junior League for being Jewish. Avram defines the differing attitude toward African Americans by Charleston Jews and gentiles in the 1950s and 60s; out of curiosity, he had attended a John Birch Society meeting, which he remembers as being only anti-Communist, and he knew members of the Ku Klux Klan. His own views on civil rights began to soften when, upon hearing of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, customers in his father's Beaufort, SC, store cheered. Of interest are his many anecdotes of life in Charleston during WWII, Jewish life and neighborhoods in Charleston and Sullivan's Island, the business practices of the Kalushiner Society Jews, and his memories of people such as Jack Krawcheck, John Henry Dick, L. Mendel Rivers, etc.
