Surprising memories at the diner
Names painted on windows offer food for thought
Although New Jersey is the “Diner Capital of the World,” it is Dad’s Copake Diner in Columbia County, N.Y. that has captured my attention.
It isn’t the spiral-bound menu, which is slim by New Jersey standards. Nor is it the typical diner fare, although the grilled cheese on sourdough with tomato is the perfect comfort food.
Rather, it is the windows.
Each booth has a window that overlooks the center of Copake, a quiet town where the Hudson River Valley meets the Berkshires. But why were names written on the windows, obstructing the view of the General Store and the Clock Tower, the bank and the liquor store?
Probably, it’s a tribute to the Class of 2026 from Taconic Hills Junior/Senior High School, my husband and I surmised. What a sweet, Norman Rockwell way to honor the graduates.
But when we looked more closely at the multitude of names, and Andy suddenly spotted Hersh Goldberg-Polin, we were dumbstruck. How did his name find its way to a window in a small-town diner on Route 7A, light years away from the Nova Music Festival where Hamas kidnapped him on October 7, 2023, and from where it eventually murdered him in an underground tunnel in Gaza? What could Hersh and all these people whose names are on the window have in common?
So, when the server came to our table to take our order, we had a lot of questions. Never mind the chocolate milkshake with extra whipped cream.
“Tell us about the windows,” we implored.
Last year, before Christmas, when the diner was closed and server/artist Colleen was decorating the interior for the holiday season, she had an epiphany.
Why not try something different this year? Forget about the Christmas and winter scenes of the town that she had previously painted on windows. What if she asked customers to submit names of a loved one who had died in 2025, or even in earlier years? Colleen would then write the name on a window, in her beautiful penmanship.
As she told her story, I wondered how customers would respond. Would they think it morbid, weird, or a loving way to remember a friend or relative, or even a stranger like Hersh Goldberg-Polin?
On that lonely December evening, Colleen began setting the stage for her project, she told us. She painted a border of snowy trees on each window. With a simple brush and a jar of white tempera paint, she drew a fence and glued a picture of a cardinal on it.
Then, much to her amazement, the names came pouring in. Two hundred at the outset. After working at Dad’s for 26 years, Colleen recognized many of the names and knew their personal stories. She could have been the town historian. She even contributed some names herself — the loyal customer who died of Alzheimer’s, the young man killed in a car accident, and the woman who succumbed to mental health problems.
Moreover, she remembered what customers ordered and where they sat. She carefully matched each name, grouping families together, with the appropriate window and table location. Now, when the regulars visit the diner, they can “share a meal” with their loved one, at their favorite table.
She also mentioned that the names weren’t limited to Copake residents or frequent customers at Dad’s. Any curious passerby could participate. As a matter of fact, that is how Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s name found a home on a window. A customer from Great Barrington, a nearby town, asked Dad’s to include him.
Now, seven months later, 800 names appear on 14 windows. An additional three windows are blank, and there is still space on the original ones.
I became obsessed with these windows and what they represented. Maybe it was because my mother-in-law’s yahrzeit was during the week we discovered them. Hannah never knew Dad’s Copake Diner, but she was familiar with the Berkshires. I could imagine sharing a piece of apple pie with her at one of the tables, telling her not only about her grandchildren but about the three great-grandchildren she never met. What the heck — bring us the whole pie and an urn of coffee. We had 22 years to catch up on.
Maybe I became fixated on the windows because food and memory are intrinsically linked. That’s why my daughter always calls me on my mother’s yahrzeit. Emily tells me that she’s making Grandma Evelyn’s rice. She knows I can smell the fried onions and mushrooms and that the memory will make me smile.
Finally, what was the likelihood that out of all the names, we would be seated at Hersh’s table? It was “beshert” — meant to be.
What would I tell him?
I would tell him that for 332 days the world prayed for his release, that his parents traveled the world to fight on his behalf and for the release of all the hostages. Never once did they abandon hope that their son would survive.
I would tell him that new parents named their babies in his memory. I would tell him about the empty chairs at Shabbat tables all around the world. Would he smile, knowing that now, he has a “seat” at Dad’s Diner, where sunlight shines on his name on a memorial window instead of on a yahrzeit board on a synagogue wall?
I would ask him if he knew who requested that his name be inscribed on the window. Or was it a stranger who wanted the people in Copake, N.Y., to remember October 7, 2023?
I would tell Hersh “I’m sorry” and I’d probably start to cry.
Judaism honors the dead in both public and private ways: leaving a stone at a grave, sitting shiva, lighting a yahrzeit candle, saying memorial prayers at Yizkor, and reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Dad’s Copake Diner is honoring the dead with a name on a window. We “share” a meal with a loved one who used to sit at the same table with us, or we wonder about the life of a stranger. For the customers at a small-town diner, where the Hudson River Valley meets the Berkshires, it is the right way to remember.