The Original Article is posted at JPost.com
Adeena Sussman’s career has continued to take off since arriving in Israel. To date, she has authored or co-authored 15 cookbooks.
From the way Adeena Sussman sits in Café Tamati just outside the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, ordering coffee for herself and guests, comfortably bantering with owner Miki Peretz and other customers in Hebrew, one might think she has been in Israel for decades. “She is like a dayeret [tenant]!” jokes Peretz.
Piled around the café are copies of her new book, Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Table to Yours (released September 2023), which customers can purchase or peruse while drinking coffee. The author of 15 cookbooks is a fairly recent arrival in Tel Aviv, though she is very comfortable in her adopted home, where she is contributing to the food scene while also mentoring young women with aspirations in the food world.
Sussman and her family were always deeply connected to Israel and Jewish life. She playfully notes that she was “almost born in Israel” while her father was doing a post-doc in physics. Growing up in Palo Alto, California, the Sussmans were Sabbath observant and helped found the Orthodox synagogue there. Sussman attended the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School and participated in the Orthodox Jewish youth movement Bnei Akiva.
She still remembers her first trip to Israel in 1979, at age nine, where Esther Rosenzweig, the mother of a family friend, graciously hosted the family in her Jerusalem home. Sussman recalls sleeping on the couch and waking up each morning to the sounds of a muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. “I learned that there are all kinds of people in Israel.”
Sussman also attributes her first Israel food memory to Rosenzweig, who lived through the siege of Jerusalem. Rosenzweig shared stories of smuggling eggs in and out of the siege area to make Irish cream liqueur, which required a large number of eggs.
Adeena Sussman (credit: LISA RISCH)
Sussman returned to Israel on a Bnei Akiva teen tour. She came to Israel again for a gap year at Machon Gold, a seminary for Orthodox girls founded in 1958 that closed in 2008. She returned to the US to attend Boston University. She graduated in 1993 with a degree in communications and decided to move to Israel without a job lined up. The resourceful Sussman went to the alumni office and jotted down the names of all the graduates who lived in Israel.
Fortunately for Sussman, one alumna passed her contact information along to her husband, who was managing director of Channel 2 TV. “I got a job!” reports Sussman, who worked in the international department buying TV shows from the US.
AFTER LIVING in Jerusalem for five years, she decided to move to New York to pursue a career in the food industry. She worked as a freelancer for such publications as Time Out New York and The Jewish Week, and later as an account executive before landing a job as special projects manager at Gourmet magazine from 2001-2004.
Sussman furthered her education in the food world by attending the Institute for Culinary Education in New York from 2005 to 2006. She received her culinary certificate and interned at Kittichai, a restaurant that subsequently closed.
She continued developing recipes and writing freelance articles for such publications as Martha Stewart Living and the Off Duty section of The Wall Street Journal. She also continued following the Israel food scene. “Israeli food became a thing when I was in New York. My career progressed as Israeli food was (developing).”
An important career break, which led to enhanced exposure, took place when Sussman co-authored the cookbook Cravings in 2016 (and its sequel, Cravings: Hungry for More) with model and TV personality Chrissy Teigen.
Another important life event occurred when Sussman was set up on a blind date by a dear friend with longtime oleh and Tel Aviv resident Jay Shofet. He has lived in Israel for over 35 years and is the director of partnerships and development for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. He previously worked for Shatil: The New Israel Fund, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and other organizations.
They married in 2017, and Sussman came on aliyah in 2018. She notes playfully, “I moved back to Israel for love and stayed for the food,” though she adds, “From an aliyah perspective, I had concerns. You hear how hard it is to transfer careers.” She reminded herself that she had been working for herself for 10 years, she was used to working independently, and that location was not very important.
A career taking off after moving to Israel
Sussman’s career has continued to take off since arriving in Israel. To date, she has authored or co-authored 15 cookbooks, including her highly acclaimed 2019 Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen, and her recently released cookbook on Shabbat recipes and rituals.
Despite her popularity and success (three books have been New York Times bestsellers), Sussman is accessible and generous with her time. “One of the best parts of my job is working with young women in Israel interested in working in food – many I find through Instagram as followers. I have met the most incredible people – that is the inspiration.”
Many of these young women have become like family to Sussman. “I work from home – they become housemates!” They also provide needed technical assistance in the complex undertaking of developing recipes and writing a cookbook. “Writing a cookbook is a massive organizational project. They help with flow, spreadsheets, and cross-testing without outside people – all my weaknesses!”
Sussman loves Israel and is proud of her career trajectory here. “The world is so amazing. My career flourished in Israel. It took off here. It is such an incredible gift to do what I want in a place I love. To share it with the world is amazing.”
