 JULY 16 • 2020 | 41

Arts&Life

review

The 
Kippah 
Drawer
Under each kippah, 
there is a story. 

I 

recently read a heartwarm-
ing short story that hit 
close to home. Actually, 
it hit closer to the cabinet my 
family stores our collection of 
yarmulkes in that catalog our 
attendance to 
simchahs over the 
years. 
The Kippah 
Drawer, released 
in March by 
native Detroiter 
Rob Granader, 
who now lives 
in Maryland, is the story of 
89-year-old widower Yosi and 
his beloved drawer of kippot. 
Yosi, nearing the end of his 
life, decides he wants to find a 
new home for each of his kip-
pot by leaving one behind each 
week at a different simchah. He 
designs a touching strategy to 
give every last yarmulke away to 
help preserve the legacy and his-
tory inscribed in each one. 
His ultimate goal, as Yosi 
explains, is that “someone might 
take these kippot with them 
and perhaps read the name and 
at least ask the question: Who 
were these people on these dates 
so long ago?” 
Granader, who attended Hillel 
Day School and Southfield-
Lathrup High, said he was 
inspired to write the story by 
something he saw as a child at 
B’
nai David. “
As a family sat in 
front of us with three men: one 
in his 30s and two in their 70s. 

They all wore the same emerald 
green velvet yarmulke, every 
time they were in the sanctuary, 
without fail,
” he said. “I once 
asked and was told they were 
the kippot from the younger 
man’
s bar mitzvah. The two 
older men on either side of him 
were his father and his uncle. 
“Every holiday those three 
kippot stared back at me. And 
even then, I knew there was a 
story on each head, under each 
kippah.
”
Granader began writing short 
stories as an undergraduate 
at the University of Michigan 
where he earned a BA in English 
in 1989. 
After earning a law degree 
from George Washington 
University in 1992, he spent the 
next several years as a reporter 
covering Capitol Hill and the 
White House. From 1994-1998 
he published more than 350 
articles and essays in more than 
50 publications. He owns mar-
ketresearch.com, a retailer of 
market research information. 
Relocating to London for a 
year in 2011 further fueled his 
passion for writing. His blog, In 
A Foreign Land (expatlondon.
blogspot.com), chronicles his 
family’
s time there. 
Granader’
s collection of 
thought-provoking essays and 
short stories, like The Kippah 
Drawer, are available for free at 
robgranader.com/shortrg. 

Alan 
Muskovitz

Rob Granader

