Joe Biden’s first Sunday mass as president involves stop at Jewish deli owned by his COVID czar
Veep Coup: Vice President Joe Biden will speak at a J Street conference in Washington. Image by getty images
(JTA) — Joe Biden is Irish and Catholic, but his family clearly has a soft spot for Jewish food.
On the way back to the White House from Biden’s first Sunday mass as president at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, the family motorcade stopped in the Georgetown neighborhood so that Hunter Biden could get bagels from the Call Your Mother deli, Bloomberg reporter Jordan Fabian tweeted.
The self-described “Jew-ish” eatery serves bagels, sandwiches, bagel sandwiches and smoked fish sides.
The deli is co-owned by Jeff Zients, a Jewish businessman who ran the National Economic Council under President Obama from 2014 to January 2017 and is now Biden’s COVID-19 czar, coordinating the administration’s plans to tackle the virus.
Some of the recipe testing for the deli’s first location was done at Zients’ home, according to Washingtonian magazine. Zients connected with Andrew Dana, the chef behind Call Your Mother and his business partner, through his father’s friend from summer camp.
“Similar to me, he’s from this area and spent a lot of time in New York and has experienced a lot of the great deli culture in New York and wanted D.C. to be able to replicate that,” Dana told the magazine.
Social media users had fun with the tidbit on Sunday. Historian and talking head Michael Beschloss noted that the store’s pastrami is “excellent.”
We got ya @POTUS! ??? https://t.co/i5ZFVeG0IG
— Call Your Mother Deli (@CYM_DC) January 24, 2021
This is the excellent Call Your Mother bagelry-deli in Georgetown, where Biden family stopped today. Pastrami excellent. One of first local outings by this President. pic.twitter.com/Hx7UVo8B1S
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 24, 2021
President Biden has tapped a slew of Jewish allies for key positions in his administration, from secretaries of state and the treasury to attorney general. Read the full list here.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
