The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store serves as a motif for the theme of Building Community Across Cultures. Its first owner, Rabbi Yakov Flohr, greatly values generosity and inclusion: He “believed the Talmud empowered him with the gift of making everyone around him happy and comfortable, including Negroes, whom he saw as fellow immigrants” (96).

The grocery store is as much a part of his commitment to bringing people comfort and building community as the shul he founded. After Moshe purchases the store from Rabbi Flohr, Chona continues her father’s legacy of generosity to the point that the store “never made a dime” (223). Heaven & Earth is Chicken Hill’s only Jewish grocery store, but people from different backgrounds find community as well as nourishment there.

The grocery store provides the setting for several key events. Moshe and Chona meet and fall in love in one of the back rooms. During their marriage, both characters foster strong intercultural relationships. For example, Moshe opens his theater to Black performers and audiences with his wife’s encouragement. In a moving display of community, the Ludlows’ Black neighbors begin “a steady trek to the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” after Chona’s illness leaves her bedridden (31):