Boxer Bends Diet for Presidential Treats
Among the guests at the White House’s Hanukkah party were Jewish boxer Dmitry Salita and his trainer Jimmy O’Pharrow.
“It was very exciting, a great holiday gift,” the undefeated, Odessa-born, New York-raised pugilist told the Shmooze.
After an hour or two of drinking and mingling, Salita said, he and O’Pharrow were called into the separate room where “you meet the president, you take your picture, and then the next person comes in to take their picture.” During their minute-long chat, the president asked Salita how his boxing career was going and pressed O’Pharrow on whether the fighter was training hard.
Salita said the highlight of the night came at 8 p.m., when all the religious Jews gathered to recite the evening Ma’ariv service together. “The fact that there’s kosher food served in the White House, there’s Ma’ariv happening in the White House, it’s absolutely a tremendous thing.”
As for that kosher food, Salita gave it the thumbs up, especially the sushi (his “favorite”). And dessert, he said, was also divine: chocolate cake, Hanukkah cookies, fruits and chocolate.
Salita laughed when asked whether such treats fit into his training diet. “Only while I’m in the White House.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
