Importing America

Nathan Zussman changed his career to focus on interior design, bringing high-quality and fair-priced furniture from the US to Israel.

By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN
Nathan Zussman (photo credit: Courtesy)
Nathan Zussman
(photo credit: Courtesy)
As a young father with a good job in New York City, Nathan Zussman nevertheless kept his eyes on the prize: a life of greater meaning in the Promised Land.
Even though his post-high-school year in yeshiva in Israel left him feeling frankly homesick, after graduating from Yeshiva University and entering the workforce, he began to recognize that he wasn’t long for the Diaspora.
“I always enjoyed the good life, and I had a realization that it wasn’t giving me the fulfillment I wanted,” he explains. “When I looked at the people who made aliya, it appeared to me that they had something I wanted. And I could not understand how anyone could not want to move there.”
When his oldest brother made aliya in 1981, Zussman’s determination became that much stronger.
In fact, the mutual acquaintance who introduced him to Miriam Friedman several years later made the match knowing that each of them wanted to live in Israel someday.
“I discovered that if whoever I dated wasn’t interested in aliya, I had little in common with her,” he says.
“With Miriam, at first that was possibly all we had in common, but luckily we grew very much in sync.”
They married in 1987 and had their first child, Tiferet, in 1990. And they began putting aside money for the move. Nathan worked in circulation forecasting at Business Week magazine. Miriam began a career in New York’s finance sector.
With a second child (son Shmuel) on the way, the family was tempted to join friends who were buying houses outside the city. Instead, so as not to get too comfortable while saving toward aliya, they moved from their small apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to a larger apartment on the Lower East Side.
During the next four years, the lure of suburbia only became stronger as two more daughters, Avital and Lena, came along.
“Raising four kids in a two-bedroom apartment was quite pathetic,” Zussman recalls with a laugh. “We always knew that if our aliya plans were realistic, we didn’t want to start in a new suburban community, so in the end, we got a bigger apartment and at some point in time we’d saved up enough money to move.”
Several years earlier, with the blessing and full cooperation of his wife, Zussman had scaled back to part-time and enrolled in interior design school. The couple also purchased a five-bedroom house under construction in Beit Shemesh, into which they moved in 1999.
“When I finished design school, we packed our bags and headed out,” Zussman says, 15 years later.
‘Something much bigger than myself ’ Aliya was exactly what the doctor ordered. Today, with a successful interior design business, he is about to fulfill his dream of importing fine American furniture.
“I never regret one day that I am here,” says Zussman.
The disconnect he’d felt in New York gave way to a feeling of inspiration.
“I had always issues with religion and trying to find the right balance around me,” says the native of Denver, Colorado. “I didn’t find that balance in the States.
Here, I feel I am working toward something much bigger than myself. In the States I found no chance to contribute, while here we have found it in a big way.”
Both Zussmans are active in local politics and are establishing a National-Religious foundation. Miriam helped found the AMIT Noga School for girls, providing an option previously lacking in their Beit Shemesh neighborhood.
“She’s a real powerhouse,” Zussman says, and that her support had made it possible for him to go back to school and change careers.
“Interior design was always my passion. I enjoy what I do so much, and I become close with all my clients,” he says. “Actually it feels like half my practice is marital counseling, because I’m dealing with people at a very stressful point in their lives. I love figuring out their needs and helping them visualize how their house could look.”
Because his wife commutes every other week to New York, he also doubles as a stay-at-home dad.
No fear However, Zussman did recently have the opportunity to visit the furniture capital of America in North Carolina, and made deals enabling him to open Interiors, a Beit Shemesh-based store. His imports will also be displayed in high-end design stores in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak.
“I’ll be bringing in some fabulous things that are durable, child-friendly and competitively priced. I’ve been working here for 15 years, and I see that people spend tremendous amounts buying mediocre furniture.
It has made me crazy since day one,” Zussman says. “I really want to make a change and add some harmony in their lives by giving them much better pricing and far superior products.”
His clients are almost exclusively English-speaking immigrants. “People coming from the States tend to have more traditional taste, while Israel has a very European, sleeker and cleaner, ‘happening’ kind of feel to home design. Clients tend to embrace that and it’s fun for me, too. I also came with a more traditional approach to design and it’s gone much more contemporary.
The things I bring in will reflect that.”
Zussman reflects that his life seems to go in phases of 15. “I spent 15 years as a computer programmer and 15 years as a designer, and if I can get the next 15 years as successful store owner, I will be very happy,” he says.
If there is one thing that still has him stymied, it is his quest for a broader movement toward what he calls “open Orthodoxy” in Israel. One of his personal heroes is a leading light of this camp: Rabbi Dr. Benny Lau, leader of Jerusalem’s Ramban Synagogue and a prominent author and lecturer on social justice and Halacha.
His other hero is Natan Sharansky. The Zussmans’ daughter Avital was named in homage to Sharansky’s wife.
“Both Rabbi Lau and Natan Sharansky have had a lot of influence on me and give me a lot of hope,” says Zussman.
“Israel has its challenges, but those challenges give me a lot of fulfillment in my life. There is stress in America and stress here, and I far prefer it here because I am part of something dynamic, that has so much future to it. I love Israelis, I love Israeli culture, and I get along with all the Arabs I come in contact with.”
He also loves Beit Shemesh, which despite making headlines for religious tensions “is a phenomenal place where we have made amazing, very supportive friends.”
He recalls that the week his family moved to Israel, the Torah portion was the first chapter of Deuteronomy, and he discovered in it a personal message. Verse 21 begins: “Look, God gave (Re’eh, natan Hashem) the land before you; go up and possess it … do not fear and do not lose resolve.” Since Natan is his Hebrew name, the verse seemed to speaking to him directly – and he heeded its message.


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