Forget it! I'll get my own pastrami.
Both the dish and the word pastrami originate from the Romanian delicacy pastramă. The Romanian term is itself etymologically rooted in the Romanian word Pastram which means "to keep" or "to preserve" a term that can be traced to before Turkish rule, another argument can be made that the word pastrami comes from the Turkish pastırma (pressed [meat]), although its use does not occur in the Turkish language until slightly later than the Romanian usage,[1] a similar but different specialty (air-dried, non-smoked cured beef). The Romanian specialty was introduced to the United States in a wave of Romanian Jewish immigration from Bessarabia and Romania in the second half of the 19th century, via the Yiddish: פּאַסטראָמע (pronounced pastróme). Early references in English used the spelling "pastrama", closer to the Romanian original. It is likely that the modified "pastrami" spelling was introduced to sound related to the Italian salami.
Who knew, it's Romanian!