An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump

December 18, 2017 Michael Olesker

Ivanka Trump attends an event in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 2017. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Dear Ms. Trump,

Imagine my surprise, bumping into you, the president’s daughter, last Friday evening at Baltimore’s Penn Station.

That was you, don’t deny it.

I was waiting for my wife’s train from New York, standing there shooting the breeze with a couple of Amtrak workers and a Baltimore City policeman, when we all looked up and there you were, moving toward us as part of the thundering herd disembarking from a train out of New York.

At first, I thought, “I know that young woman from somewhere.” Then, as you got closer, I thought, “Gosh, she looks so much like Ivanka Trump, they could be twins.”

By the time you were within 10 or 15 feet of us, with your eyes locked straight ahead, and your feet zipping along like some halfback in a big hurry, and your Secret Service entourage bundled around you, I realized it was you in the flesh.

You were slimmer than I’d imagined, and slightly shorter, but it was you alright.

So, as you quickly disappeared toward Mount Royal Avenue, I turned to the city cop and the two Amtrak guys and said, “Is it my imagination or …?”

They quickly confirmed that it was you, Ivanka, and that they’d been alerted you were arriving but were told not to mention it to anyone ahead of time. And they didn’t know why you were here or where you were going.

So I figured maybe your dad would know. I telephoned the White House press office, but was told I’d have to submit any questions via email. So I emailed.

And got no response.

And since this is probably not at the top of their vital national concerns, I figured I’d send my remaining questions in this open letter to you. Thus:

Did you come here because you heard the Chanukah shopping was better in Pikesville than Manhattan?
Did you come because you heard Baltimore is the nation’s true seat of power, and you wanted some leadership tips from Catherine Pugh and Kevin Kamenetz?
Did you stop to see the Christmas lights on 34th Street in Hampden?

Nope, probably not the last one, since you’ve become famously Jewish since your marriage to Jared Kushner. Jared wasn’t with you Friday evening, presumably because, as everyone knows, he’s been busy bringing peace to the Middle East.

So there you were, Ivanka, 8 o’clock on a Friday night in the middle of Chanukah with your children who knows where?

As the Jerusalem Post reported, earlier this year, “As a rule, the immediate tribe has Shabbat dinner together every Friday. Jared and Ivanka log off for the night wherever they may be – in New York, at the family home in New Jersey, or in Washington.”

All of which leaves me with only one final question.

Ivanka, Ivanka — what were you doing traveling on Shabbat?

Sincerely,

Michael Olesker

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” has just been re-issued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.