Epstein's 1979 novel centers on Isaiah Chaim Trumpelman, a Judenrat leader in the Lodz ghetto who ruled with "regal pomposity" and promised a golden age — modeled on real-life Mordecai Chaim Rumkowski. The eerie name coincidence with Donald Trump, combined with Jeffrey Epstein's surname matching the author's, creates a surreal historical echo that's purely accidental — the novel predates Trump's political career by decades and Leslie Epstein (no relation to Jeffrey) based his character on historical fact, not prophecy.