The GatherDC blog strives to present a holistic portrait of the DMV’s Jewish community, sharing a wide variety of Jewish voices and perspectives. If you have a 20- or 30-something to nominate as our Jewish Person of the Week or for a Spotted in Jewish DMV feature, please email us!
Polly and I met up pre-Passover at Pluma for a conversation about Polly’s time at the Department of Energy, her next adventure in Vienna, why we should all be spending more time at The Wharf, her time at a Jewish culinary retreat, and why Trisha Paytas would be a good (or at least interesting) Shabbat dinner guest.
Samuel: What brought you to the DMV?
Polly: I went to the University of Virginia. I knew I wanted to work in public service, so I applied for a graduate fellowship program through the Department of Energy. That was in 2022, and I’ve been here ever since.
Samuel: What’s kept you here?
Polly: Definitely my friends and community. I live with my best friend from UVA, Kira. I also have a cat – Oppenheimer, or Oppie for short. He’s a cute orange cat. And then I’ve made friends in our building, and they’ve introduced me to friends…it’s just been fun to live in one place until it starts to feel like home, you know?
Samuel: Have you lived in the Wharf this entire time?
Polly: We have been here the entire time. When Kira and I were trying to find an apartment in DC – and I don’t think we took the most streamlined approach, we were just going on apartments.com like “This seems cool!” – we took the train up from UVA and toured all the options in one day. And this apartment [in the Wharf] was the only one in budget. Most of my friends live up in NW DC but it’s been great; I’ve met my friends in part because we have a pool at the apartment. We’ve been on trips together to, well, all the typical bachelorette party locations. We just got back from Miami.
I also love living here because I can walk 20 minutes to get to work. We do a lot of work happy hours down here, and I like the bookstore that we’re next to, we go to The Colada Shop a lot…it’s been a nice little community.
Samuel: What’s your Jewish community in DC been like?
Polly: It’s been ad hoc – my Jewish friends will invite me to different events, or I’ll go to Shabbat dinners, or I went on one of the Entwine DC trips and made a really good friend there.
Samuel: What feels particularly alive for you Jewishly?
Polly: I just got back from a Jewish culinary retreat called B’teavon. We learned how to make black and white cookies, French desserts, pastries for Passover, red lentil stew, rugelach, cocktails…I went with my mom and one of my best friends from UVA, and her mom, so it was kind of like a mother-daughter Jewish baking retreat. This friend was actually the person who got me really involved in Jewish life at UVA. She was like: You should come to Hillel, you should go on birthright, you should do Onward, that sort of thing. I feel like that’s been how I’ve operated – if someone invites me to something, that’s how I stay involved.
Samuel: What’s something about your job with the Department of Energy that fascinates you or you wish more people understood?
Polly: My job supports the sustainment and modernization of the US nuclear deterrent, looking at everything that is currently in the stockpile and the future of nuclear weapons. I like to talk about the concept of extended deterrence. Everyone who is under the United States’ nuclear umbrella – NATO, South Korea, Japan, our allies – have basically bought into this grand bargaining agreement that’s like: We will protect you with our nuclear forces so, in return, don’t make your own nuclear weapons programs. In that way, nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation are two sides of the same coin, and I like that my work is hopefully reducing the amount of nuclear weapons worldwide.
Samuel: You mentioned that you’re moving to Vienna. What are you looking forward to?
Polly: I’m moving to go work for the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is part of the UN. I’ve actually never been to Vienna, but I was just on a call this morning with some people who are doing a similar program, and they seem really fun. They were giving me recommendations on where to live, which reminded me of when I moved to DC and people told me which neighborhoods to look at. One notable difference is that you can swim in the river.
Samuel: [Editor’s note: This really confused me, as Vienna, Virginia does not touch the Potomac River. I had also been thinking: Vienna is not that far. Why not visit before you move? The Orange line goes there!] Wait, wait – you mean like Vienna, Austria.
Polly: I should clarify. Some of my friends thought that, too. They were like: Not sure why you’re moving to the suburbs, interesting choice.
Samuel: That’s so cool! You’re moving continents. How are you going to approach that?
Polly: I do have a strategy. Apparently there’s a ton of ways to make friends because there’s UN clubs you can join – there’s a ski club, a whisky-tasting club, stuff like that. There’s the UN interagency games, which is where everyone who works for the UN goes and plays a sport, and this year it’ll be held in the south of France. There’s a game similar to bocce that I maybe want to do. I feel like I’ll make friends there, and I’ve heard that my division is a pretty social one. I have a few people that I’ve met, and hopefully they’ll introduce me to their mutual friends.
Samuel: Okay, some quick ones to close. What’s something you’re bad at?
Polly: Most sports that involve a ball. I’ve done the Volo leagues – kickball, softball, dodgeball – but my value-add was being fun.
Samuel: What’s something in DC that doesn’t get enough shine?
Polly: The Wharf in general. I’m a big fan. I heard someone call it, in a derogatory tone, the Disneyland of DC, but I was like: There’s a reason why Disney is popular! It’s fun, and it’s nice to be by the water. I don’t know if this is true, but my roommate says that, like, evolutionarily you’re happier around water. Plus, there’s a little farmer’s market outside my apartment on Saturdays and I’m right next to the metro so I can go and see my friends in other parts of the city. I feel connected to the rest of DC, but I’m a SW DC defender.
Samuel: You’re hosting Shabbat dinner and can invite any three people. Who are you bringing?
Polly: The first person would be Liz Sherwood-Randall, who was the former Deputy Secretary at the Department of Energy. I read a book where, when there were negotiations to remove highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet Union, she was the only woman in the room. And someone said, in Russian, something like: What is this woman doing here? And when she responded, in Russian, they were like: Okay, mad respect. You’re one of our equals. I’d love to talk to her about what it was like during that time period, and what it was like when there was a lot more cooperation around the Nunn–Lugar Act.
I would also invite the lead singer of my favorite band, Bastille: Dan Smith. It would be cool to talk to him about what he’s working on and what the inspiration for [certain] songs was.
And, I’d want to invite Trisha Paytas. She’d add an element of chaos.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Polly: Community is built.
Samuel: Great. Anything else we missed?
Polly: Actually, yes. Oppenheimer – I’m very proud – just won Pet of the Month in our apartment building.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog and on this website are solely those of the original authors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the organization GatherDC, the GatherDC staff, the GatherDC board, and/or any/all contributors to this site.
