‘Historical’ thanks
The recent storm and resultant long power outages precluded my getting this letter of praise off to you earlier. I was referred by neighbors active in local Jewish affairs to Linda Forgosh of the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey to help me research a query on the grave marker for my paternal grandparents and great-grandparents buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Frankfurt, Germany.
Having ancestral records for both my mother’s and my father’s family going back to the late 18th century, I have never reached out before for help in these matters. My parents both died in the early 1970s; my brother and I were raised as Christians, to which my parents had converted in the 1940s. However, the recent death of my brother’s wife of 45 years prompted me to go through old pictures and get them sorted and stored electronically. This exercise is what led me to see an ‘oddity’ in a photo I’d seen many times in the past.
But this letter is not about me,and I only provided this background to further illustrate the extent of Linda’s efficient, prompt, and very caring attention to someone of a “different” community. Within days of my mid-October query, I was receiving e-mails from her wide network of people who could provide some answers. I am awed by the scope of her outreach and the helpfulness (and again, caring) of each and every person in her “chain” who researched and reported back. As I told my brother, it was like Linda threw a pebble into the water, and it rippled out and out and out….
I do not know Linda personally nor much about the work of the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey, but in this “disconnected” society in which we live, I think it’s important that we recognize those who maintain the sense of community and are gracious (and efficient) in helping to find answers. I hope you’ll share my praise and appreciation for Linda Forgosh with your readership.
Marge Goldmann Vere
Caldwell
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