At the JCC, we believe that Israel engagement is not a single conversation. It is a living, breathing commitment that takes many forms, reaches many people, and speaks to the very heart of who we are as a Jewish community center.
This past Monday evening, in partnership with big Burrito Restaurant Group and Table Magazine, we added a beautiful and unforgettable new dimension to this agenda when we welcomed Adeena Sussman and Michael Solomonov for an evening of flavor, story, and profound connection. And what an evening it was! The event marked the final stop of Adeena’s U.S. tour for her newest cookbook, Zariz, and as Michael told her with characteristic warmth, she could not have chosen a better place than Pittsburgh to bring it to a close.
But the evening was about so much more than food. It was about Israel. And as Adeena and Michael compellingly and personally reminded us, not the Israel of headlines and political debate, but the Israel of people, culture, memory, and meaning.
Adeena spoke about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Palo Alto, California, where being visibly Jewish meant fielding questions from a high school friend who had spotted her and her family walking down the street on a Saturday morning, dressed up, and wondered whether their car had broken down. Experiences like that, Adeena said, shaped her ability to explain things authentically to others and to be a bridge between worlds. She spoke exuberantly about the joy of uncovering culinary legacies from communities and corners of the world she hadn’t even known were home to Jews, and of Israel’s spontaneous food culture – a spontaneity she contrasted with affectionate humor to American-style spontaneity, which, she joked, requires eight weeks of advance planning.
Michael, whose mother was a teacher at Community Day School right here in Pittsburgh, spoke with raw honesty about his brother David, who was killed while serving in the IDF, and about how opening his landmark restaurant Zahav was, at its core, an act of love and a way of telling the world a story about Israel that went beyond the news cycle. Both he and Adeena could not have been clearer. They do not do their work for the critics. They do it for the people.
Adeena and Michael spoke about the Israeli shuk (marketplace) as a living symbol of what the country actually is. A place where the calendars of many religions shape the rhythms of daily life, where nearly all of the tahina is made by Palestinians and purchased by Jews, and where the diversity of the people is not an obstacle to navigate but the very essence of the place. They brought us inside Israel in the most intimate way imaginable. Not through argument, but through story, laughter, grief, and love.
The highlight of the evening came when Adeena and Michael spontaneously created the JCCPGH Mosaic Masbacha (a warm, chunkier and more rustic version of hummus). Like the dish itself – distinct ingredients, each with its own character, coming together in one shared bowl – our community is made up of people with their own stories, their own histories, their own relationship to Israel and to Jewish life, gathering in one shared space. That, in many ways, is the most honest description of what we are trying to build through our work.
At the JCC, we believe that when we gather, especially around food, we create room for curiosity, conversation, and connection. We believe that Israel engagement, at its best, is not a lecture or a debate. It is an invitation into lived experience. It is Adeena describing what it felt like to get married in her forties, move to Israel, and become a grandmother. It is Michael describing the role the JCC played during his most formative years and the importance of his Israeli heritage. It is two world-renowned chefs, sitting together on a stage in Pittsburgh, teasing the audience about the possibility of collaborating together on a television show and making everyone in attendance, for a few hours, feel like they had just landed in Tel Aviv.
Our Israel engagement agenda will continue to grow. We will keep asking hard questions, hosting meaningful speakers, sending our teens on journeys that will shape who they become, welcoming Israelis into our community, and finding new and unexpected ways – like Monday night – to bring Israel to life for our members and broader community.
Wishing you and your families a Shabbat shalom,
Jason
You can hear more about Adeena and Mike’s stories in the latest episode of our new podcast series, JCC Voices.
Apply HERE for the 2026/2027 Diller Teen Fellows program.
Purchase tickets HERE for the June 16 session of Come Curious. Leave Wiser.
