Approximately a dozen years ago, I traveled to Baltimore with my daughter for a kever avot visit in advance of the Yamim Noraim. At my late mother’s insistence, and meticulous supervision, we painted the heretofore illegible faded letters of my great-grandfather Rav Yitzchak Schuman’s matseva (tombstone), some 70 years after his 1942 passing. Family legend held that the text, composed in a beautiful acrostic literary Hebrew, was written by his great chaver in learning, the Gaon Rav Michoel Forschlager, zt”l, who, by prior arrangement, was buried nearby.

Shortly after I completed that trip, an ad appeared in the Baltimore magazine called Where What When, seeking anyone who could share information about Rav Forschlager. At my mother’s insistence I responded to the ad and told all I knew about Rav Forschlager and Rav Schuman; it was a short conversation indeed since the matseva was all I knew about them at that time. The author of that request, Rabbi BenTzion Bergman, informed me that he was researching Rav Forschlager and was collecting information. Thus, he requested facts and photos of my great-grandparents, Etta Gita and Rav Yitzchak Chanoch Schuman, z”l. I acceded to his request and then closed the book on those memories as I had nothing more to discuss or offer Rav Bergman. Or so I thought....