Dovid Poltorak Brings Kosher to Capital Hill

By Emma Dumain, Roll Call

A former intern’s crusade to bring kosher food back to the Senate bore fruit Monday with the beginning of a trial run at the Dirksen Senate Office Building’s cafeteria. Prepackaged sandwiches and salads “Made with Love” from Kosher caterer Bubbie’s Gourmet were stacked alongside standard fare. Options included a “Tuscan salad” of chickpeas, bow tie pasta and green beans, along with a balsamic chicken sandwich on flatbread. If all goes well, selections from Bubbie’s Gourmet could become fixtures of dining services offered all across the Senate side of the Capitol.

David Poltorak, an Orthodox Jew and recent Georgetown law school graduate who was then interning for freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), began his quest for kosher last autumn. On his first day, he recalled going downstairs to one of the several cafeterias and carry-outs scattered throughout Senate office buildings. “Where’s the kosher food?” he asked. The answer: There was none. Nowhere on the Capitol campus could observant Jews find a premade meal.

Poltorak was told by Restaurant Associates, the private company that runs the Senate food services, that there was no kosher food because there was no demand. “I couldn’t believe there was no demand,” Poltorak said. “My first day here, I had, like, 10 kosher friends here working in Congress as staffers, and they said they wanted kosher food but had just never bothered to ask … they brought food from home or subsided on potato chips or peanuts.” Poltorak got by on peanuts, Diet Cokes and Mike and Ike candy during the course of his internship. “It’s not my style,” he said, to bring his lunch from home to avoid a kosher junk food diet.

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