At the beginning, we didn't need an employee list
When we started, there were three of us. I knew everyone, who arrived early and who remembered to eat only after someone asked. I didn't have an HR department yet. I had three people, a crowded table and plenty to do.
I stayed with the company as it grew. We hired, moved to a bigger office, then opened an office in New York. At first, we talked about a few people moving. When I looked at the list again, it already had forty names.
I was proud of it. So were they. It was a chance to work somewhere new, build a team and be closer to our clients. Still, on every visit to the New York team, I also heard what was missing. During lunch, someone would say things were fine here, but they missed the food at home. Someone else would start talking about dinner at their parents' house, and within a moment two more people would join in with their own dishes. It came up again on my next visit, with different people around the table.
I almost sent another gift card
I came back from one of those visits with the conversations still in my head. I felt a little guilty: we had asked them to move, and they were the ones who had to build new lives. When we started discussing a gift for the employees there, a gift card was the first suggestion. Easy to distribute, everyone chooses for themselves, and we could mark the task done.
I opened the options, then stopped. We'd given those before. They were useful, but I couldn't picture the moment someone opened the message. Another amount to spend somewhere they could shop every day. This time, I wanted them to feel the choice had something to do with them.
I wasn't looking for a gift that would fix homesickness. I didn't want to load it with all my guilt, either. I wanted something small they could bring home from the office, something that would give them a reason to make a meal they'd enjoy sitting down to.
I thought about the kitchen after work
I chose The Levantine Pantry Box: tahini, za'atar, shawarma spice, Herby Harissa spice and olives. Reading tahini and za'atar, I was already thinking about the flavors. Tahini beside vegetables and bread, za'atar you add a little more of after the first bite. Not a special meal, but things that used to arrive on our table without anyone announcing them. I wanted to send something of that taste of home, rather than only a pretty box.
As I went through the contents, I thought about the small meals of an ordinary day. These were flavors they could bring to their tables in their new kitchens, without trying to recreate a whole meal from Israel.
I didn't assume everyone ate the same things. Before settling the choice, I checked dietary and kosher needs with the team. We arranged the order and delivery details separately. The box wasn't meant to replace those checks.
I didn't write a speech about relocation in the greeting, either. I wrote that we'd been thinking about their evenings at home, and hoped the gift would find a place in their new kitchens.
The photo came after the boxes were opened
On the day the gifts were handed out at the New York office, I got a photo of the boxes. I was glad they'd arrived, but then came the pictures I hadn't known I was waiting for: employees with their families around the table, plates in the middle, children tasting and parents smiling. On our next call, everyone wanted to tell me what they'd opened at home. This time, conversations about what was missing became excited conversations about what they'd made and eaten together.
In one employee's photo, I saw her family around a plate of tahini, cut vegetables and bread she'd bought on her way home. There were olives beside the plate and a little za'atar over the tahini. She told me they'd torn the bread and dipped it. Before finishing the plate, they were talking about meals back home in Israel. That simple bite, tahini and za'atar on bread, reminded her of an evening at her parents' house. The children asked who usually sat around the table there. She said she was glad they had a way to taste something from the story, rather than only hear about it.
More than a tick on the list
The gift didn't shorten the distance from Israel. The children still needed to settle in, and visits still took planning. I knew that before choosing it.
But before we returned to work on our next call, someone mentioned that the tahini already had a regular place in her kitchen. It was a short sentence. To me, it meant more than a photo of forty neatly arranged boxes.
When I think about the gift card I almost chose, I understand what was missing for me this time. I wanted them to recognize something of themselves in our choice. Something to take home, open at their own pace and return to on an ordinary day. For a moment, with tahini and za'atar on a piece of bread, their New York kitchens reminded them of another kitchen. The taste didn't bring them back to Israel, but it gave their homesickness something pleasant to sit beside.