Aug. 26--WASHINGTON -- It's a story that would make your Jewish grandmother cry "oy vey," before cramming a few extra bagels in your duffel bag.
David Ginsberg, 23, used to live in New Jersey, a stone's throw from the kosher capital of the world.
"There's bagels, pizza," he said. "Chinese, Italian, a good steak house ... if you want it, you can get it in New York."
And get it he did, often visiting Manhattan to chow down on some of its finest offerings.
Then he took a job in politics and moved to Washington. But though it's not lacking in prominent kosher keepers (Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is among the most famous, though his office did not return repeated calls for comment on where the lawmaker eats), there are only two kosher restaurants in the whole city, leaving the capital's growing Orthodox Jewish community with limited food choices.
"There's nowhere else to go," said Ginsberg. "You get used to it, you adapt and you move on."
Few up to Jewish rules
For food to be considered kosher it must have been prepared in a kitchen that follows rules laid down in the Torah, which specifies that, among other things, Jews can only eat certain kinds of meat and seafood, and that dairy and meat cannot be consumed at the same time.
As Ginsberg found out, few restaurants are up to the challenge. The city's Jewish newspaper, the Washington Jewish Week, doesn't even have a food or restaurant critic.
"There's not really much to say about" kosher cuisine in the capital, observes Elan Kornblum, president and publisher of Great Kosher Restaurants Magazine.
Eateries go belly-up
Except, of course, there is a bit of a story. It goes something like this:
About 10 years ago, several restaurants opened in the area featuring an array of kosher food choices. Just as abruptly, they closed, due to lack of interest.
"There were some that opened way back, but they didn't do so well. ... Then, nobody wanted to open one," said Andreas Marountas, the manager at Eli's Restaurant, one of the two kosher food options here.
Then came a growing Orthodox population, followed by Eli's, which opened in 2005. Marountas said the owners saw a hole in the market and decided to try to fill it.
Now the restaurant is frequented by college students, families and friends of kosher eaters looking for a night on the town that will keep their dining partners on God's good side.
At JCC Cafe, the other kosher joint in Washington, business is said to be booming too.
"We get a good crowd," co-owner Manuel Gonzales said.
Rabbi Barry Freundel, who leads Kesher Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in the Georgetown neighborhood, frequents both establishments. He even has a sandwich named after him at Eli's, filled with roast beef, corned beef, pastrami and mustard.
Freundel said that kosher restaurants struggled in the past because many Orthodox Jews work and live in different parts of the city. This makes it difficult for a restaurant to garner both a lunch and dinner crowd.
But he thinks that's changing.
"The kosher population has grown," he said. Now his synagogue gets two to five new member applications a month. This means, he said, that there is a stable crop of young people regularly looking for good, reasonably priced food.
Looking for a good bagel
Chicago hasn't done much better than D.C. in terms of kosher fare. Kornblum estimates that there are about five "good" restaurants around town, but they close around 8 p.m., too early for most customers.
"It's another one of those towns that has a tough time sustaining so many restaurants," he said.
The Virginia and Maryland suburbs of Washington boast a much more plentiful supply of kosher eateries, especially in Silver Spring, Md., which has a collection of supermarkets selling kosher meats, as well as pizza restaurants and bagel shops.
But for Ginsberg, that just isn't close enough.
"I joke that if this politics thing doesn't work out, I'm going to open a bagel store in the district," Ginsberg said. "How hard can it be to make a good bagel?"
If it's New York-style bagels you crave, Kornblum has some advice.
"I tell people from Baltimore that the drive from Baltimore to New York is shorter from New York to Baltimore," Kornblum said. "I imagine the same applies to D.C."
axerickson@tribune.com
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