Yoni Bradin: 'Total family guy' from Hauppauge loved making gourmet meals

Yoni Bradin, a "total family guy," died of COVID-19 at age 36. Credit: Jennifer Bradin
When Yoni Bradin walked into a room, you knew it. He had a laugh you could hear from miles away, and he could talk to anyone like he had been a friend for years.
“It didn’t matter who you were or what walk of life you came from,” said Nick Panepinto, a close friend. “Once you started talking to him, it’s like he’s known you his entire life.”
Bradin and Panepinto met through their sales jobs at ADP, a human resources and payroll company. They were both right out of college and easily fell into friendship, Panepinto said. Bradin also met his wife, Jennifer, through ADP.
Although the couple didn’t work there at the same time — Bradin started working at ADP two months after Jennifer left — a mutual friend later introduced them and they hit it off. They would have been together a decade this summer, six of those years as a married couple.
Bradin died of COVID-19 on April 20 after a month in the intensive care unit at Stony Brook University Hospital. He was 36.
“He’s the total family guy,” his wife said. “We always did everything together, as much as we could.”
Friends of Bradin were in for a gourmet meal when they visited his home. Whether it was salmon, steak or his most recent endeavor, pad thai, Bradin was happy to make it.
“He loved cooking for other people and watching people enjoy the food he made,” said Jennifer Bradin. “He really could make anything and it would taste better than any restaurant would make it.”
Bradin learned how to cook working at a Hamptons restaurant while he was a Stony Brook University student. An Israel native, he moved to the United States when he was 4, growing up in upstate Suffern. Most recently, he lived in Hauppauge with his wife and two children: Bella, 3, and Noah, 1.
Beyond cooking, Bradin had a wide range of interests, including gardening and craft beers. He and his family loved to be outdoors, whether it was camping or hiking, and Bradin liked to travel, particularly to Israel where some of his family still lives.
His wife said he was the most genuinely kindhearted and generous person she had ever known. The level of love and chivalry she saw in Bradin was something that she says she normally recognizes in older generations.
“But he was just so loving and so honest and just really loved his family so much and his friends, more than anything, and would do anything for any of us, if he could,” Jennifer Bradin said.
In addition to his wife and two children, Bradin is survived by his grandfather Samuel Bradin; his parents, Billy and Ditza Bradin; a brother, Nitzan Bradin; his mother-in law and father-in-law, Cheryl and Jeff Rubin; his brothers-in-law, Corey Stern and Brian Rubin; his sisters-in-law, Karen Stern and Krystle Dougherty; and nephews Mason and Shea Stern.
A funeral service has been held and the family plans to hold a memorial service in the future.