Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Schwartzman

From Yoni Schwartzman, Rabbi Yisroel Moshe's Great-Great-Grandson: I would like to begin by saying that Rabbi Yisroel Moshe is the patriarch of my family. Of his 7 children, 2 survived the brutal Holocaust: Rabbis Shloym and Meyer Schwartzman (who were the youngest and oldest of the 7, respectively). As I write this in 2019, these 2 sons' descendants total 168 individuals.

Rabbi Yisroel Moshe was born to Rabbi Zev Schwartzman and Sura Schwartzman (nee Szmeitana) in 1872 in Zagorow, Poland.

It is possible that he was named after the same Yisroel Moshe as his first cousin, Yisroel Moshe Berkowitz (see [Yisroel Moshe Berkowitz]%29 who was born 2 years before him. The two may be named after Izrael Kahn (see [Izrael Kahn]), their shared great-grandfather.

During Yisroel Moshe's lifetime, Germans and Poles and Jews all coexisted together in this small town that in 1897 was 1/3 Jewish. Yisroel Moshe's father was a Rabbi and 3 of his own sons were ordained as rabbis too. He and his family endured the destruction of their town during WWI as it was on the border of Poland and Germany(which is why 35% of the inhabitants were German).

He died in 1929 and is buried in Posen/Poznan, though his headstone was probably used to an awful end by the Nazi regime. The cemetery where he is buried in was known as the Old Jewish Cemetery in Poznan which is now a mall parking lot. There is a monument at the back of the lot to a famous Rabbi who was buried there named Rabbi Akiva Eger.

We're very fortunate to have a photograph of Yisroel Moshe and his headstone as they are a lens into the past and connect us to Yisroel Moishe's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all their siblings.