When the old man died, the 11-year-old Sheldon, known as "Obie" was grieved, but did not want his grandfather's prayer shawl. He shoved it into the back of a drawer and forgot it.
He never went through a bar mitzvah ceremony - a time when he might have worn it.
One generation later, when it was time for the bar mitzvah of his son Adam, Oberman came across his grandfather's tallit, the traditional Jewish prayer shawl. It was the only item left from the old man's days in czarist Russia.
This time, the fabric seemed drenched with meaning.
"'I wrote a story for Adam so he would know the story of my grandfather, whom he never saw, Oberman told a dozen Jewish educators and librarians gathered Thursday at Booksellers' Pavillion Mall store in Beachwood. "To be clear, there is a lot of wish-fulfillment that goes on in storytelling. Although I was close to my grandparents, I really didn't know them very well."
Then the Canadian author wrapped his shoulders in the Russian garment, with its frayed tassels and rip below the left collar, and began to tell "The Always Prayer Shawl."
Oberman didn't read his 32-page book. He memorized it long ago, through five years of public retellings, putting its sentences through 50 drafts and transforming it into an hourlong play. Adam is 19 now and Boyds Mills press has just published "The Always Prayer Shawl," illustrated with Ted Lewin's historically exacting wa- tercolors.
The effect on listeners is strong. Noses redden. Eyes rim. One man who heard Oberman on the radio had to pull his car off the road to compose himself.
"It's like a book called 'Love You Forever,'" observed Marcia E. Levine, Judaic buyer for Booksellers. "It touches people very deeply. And everybody has a story about a tallit. This book talks our history, something that Jews do very well, talking history."
At Solomon Schechter School in Shaker Heights, Oberman's story caused second- and third-graders to stop swinging their high-tops and listen, even on the hot second day of school. A few thumbs found their way into mouths. Third-grader Arkady Polinkovsky, himself a recent arrival from Russia, was rapt during the part about leaving family behind.
"I want to emphasize it's not just a Jewish story," Oberman said later. "It seems to speak across generations. Even if you didn't know your grandparents, you know what you needed from them. We are living in a society where we are starved for the wisdom of elders, for their continuity ...
"I think the speed of our culture has been breaking up our stories and our lan- guage and how we just be with each other. We tend to speak in a David Letterman patter of one-liners." Oberman's story slowed down Charles H. Fink. The recent graduate of Heidelberg College. who owns his father's tallit, said Oberman's shawl and story drew him from other Bookseller displays.
"It's the idea of tradition," Fink said. "Some things change and some things don't. And when he said, 'I am Adam,' I found myself saying 'I am Chuck.' We reinvent the story as we listen with our own characterizations."
I Oberman evokes a big echo with "The Always Prayer Shawl." The smallest children at Solomon Schechter, a Jewish day school, wanted to tell him where their grandparents came from. The oldest listeners at Booksellers did the same. And Geraldine F. Powers, the school librarian, told him a piece of her family history.
This pleases Oberman, a 45-year-old English teacher in a Winnipeg Jewish high school. He thinks stories are the best gifts, better than prayer shawls. He encourages the schoolchildren he meets to ferret out their families' oldest and best stories.
"You may be the most important carrier on of a tradition ," he told them. "There may be a point 50 or 60 years from now when you may be the only one with the old family story. And then. somebody will ask you what it was like when you were a kid and what your grandparents were like. And vou may link your grandparents with your grandchildren and who knows how long a story will last? Some last thousands of years.
These sentiments made turning 40 easier for Stuart Muazynski, a Lyndhurst life insurance salesman who had Oberman sign a copy of "The Always Prayer Shawl" for his I 6-year-old son, Steven.
"'It really did bring a lump to my throat," Muszynski said. "I think too many things from the past are thrown away. Parents in the baby boomer generation are afraid of relating to all that. It may work for them, but they are cutting away part of the future for their children, too."
Adam Morrison Oberman, for - whom the book was written, said the story from his father made his bar mitzvah more spiritual and his family ties stronger. Although the younger Oberman is not particularly observant now, the experience "left something solid for me to come back to later," he said from his Winnipeg home
In Shaker Heights, Briana Ickowicz, 7, had a message for Sheldon Oberman. "I tried on my Dad's prayer shawl," she whispered.
"What did it feel like?" Oberman asked.
"It felt good," she smiled.
"Yeah," Oberman nodded. "All those memories."