On Friday, May 5, Peter Kupfer, Author of the Glassmaker’s Son, will speak during and after services about his parents, Gertrude and Robert Cooper, longtime members of CMI and about the book he wrote recounting Robert’s escape from Nazi Germany.
A blend of lyrical memoir and sober history, “Glassmaker” recounts my decades-long quest to uncover the world my father left behind in Nazi Germany. Along the way I made a series of surprising discoveries about my family, who were major players in the Bavarian glassmaking industry before they were nearly annihilated in the Holocaust. The book weaves together the diabolical history of German antisemitism with poignant memories of growing up in New Haven and Hamden (a few blocks from the temple), my yearning to get closer to my distant father, and my struggles with my sexuality. At heart, “Glassmaker” is about a search for identity — the identity of my soft-spoken, inscrutable father and of myself.
Peter Kupfer is a San Francisco-based writer, editor and photographer. His freelance stories about business, the arts, travel and other subjects have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Observer and Metropolis magazine. He was a copyeditor at the San Francisco Chronicle for many years. “The Glassmaker’s Son," published in November by Amsterdam Publishers, is his first book.
Join us in person or online for Friday night Shabbat services with Rabbi Immerman and Cantor Giglio. Services begin at 6:00pm. We hope that you can join our community at 5:30pm for a pre-oneg in the rotunda before services. See you there!
If you wish to add additional names to the mi shebeirach or kaddish list, please email Sarah Legassey by 12pm on Friday.