Seed + Mill co-founder Rachel Simons has come a long way from the schoolyard at Moriah College. The Sydney-born entrepreneur, who finished up as school captain in 1993, now runs a sesame concept store in New York’s iconic Chelsea Market that has become something of a cult destination for foodies and nostalgic halva lovers alike.
But right now, her business is in the crosshairs of the BDS movement, and Simons is not staying quiet about it.
Simons grew up deeply embedded in the Sydney Jewish community. Her grandfather, Percy Simons, was one of the founders of Mount Zion Pre-School and of Moriah College itself, where her father Philip later served as a board trustee. She volunteered as a Hineni youth camp counsellor, got involved with JNF and UIA, and says her oldest and dearest friends are still those she made growing up in Sydney.
These days, though, her world revolves around the humble sesame seed.
“I’ve always loved the way food sits at the intersection of culture and history – how it moves through our homes, kitchens and dining tables, connecting us to our past and to each other,” she told The AJN. “I was fascinated by tahini and halva’s long history across so many cultures, and my co-founders and I saw an opportunity to breathe new life into a food with far more potential than people realised.”
Ultimately, Simons saw untapped delicious potential in a food most people only associated with hummus.
“I’d love for our brand to be a vehicle for dialogue, communication and storytelling – for building bridges between people…”
She and her co-founders opened Seed + Mill to showcase both the savoury and sweet sides of tahini, and it took off. Their tahini soft-serve, which Simons said was recently voted one of the best ice creams in New York by the New York Times, has become the store’s signature product. In 2025 she published her debut cookbook, Sesame: Global Recipes + Stories of an Ancient Seed, which Simons said was a career highlight.
Watching the brand grow has been “humbling”, Simons said, particularly the emotional responses people have to halva.
“People’s reactions to our products, especially our halva, still catch me off guard; they love sharing the emotional, nostalgic stories tied to it: where they ate it, who they were with, the memories it brings back,” she said.
That warmth makes the current climate all the more painful. Seed + Mill’s products are proudly made in Israel, and since October 7, 2023, Simons said the brand has faced “a constant stream of BDS-related emails, order cancellations and withdrawals from customers, and harassment both online and in our store in New York”.
“It’s been demoralising and hard to endure, particularly given the values our brand was built on, which are rooted in co-existence and dialogue between people of different cultures, places, religions and ethnicities,” she explained.
The most damaging blow came in May this year, when members of Brooklyn’s Park Slope Food Coop voted to boycott Israeli-made products, with 67 per cent of participating members voting in favour. For Seed + Mill, it has been the most visible and financially impactful instance of BDS activity against the brand.
What particularly frustrates Simons is that no one from the coop invited Seed + Mill to speak to members before the vote.
“Their stated goal is ending apartheid in Israel, but that framework simply doesn’t hold up applied to our brand,” she explained. “Our products are made in a factory owned by a Muslim Arab Israeli.”
Despite it all, Simons wants Seed + Mill to bring people together.
Asked what she hopes to achieve with the brand, Simons’ message was simple.
“I’d love for our brand to be a vehicle for dialogue, communication and storytelling – for building bridges between people,” she said, while also giving Aussies an open invitation to stop by the Chelsea Market store, try the halva, and learn about the brand’s manufacturing partners in Israel.
But she is not mincing words about the broader movement. “If we can help show the world that BDS is immoral, racist, illegal and ultimately unproductive, I’ll feel proud of what we’ve contributed.”
For more information, visit seedandmill.com
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