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U.S. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer begins his book tour on Monday and is expected to encounter protests from his own political camp. For the first time in his career, he hopes these demonstrations don’t descend into antisemitism — but as his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning”, makes clear, he’s no longer certain.
The most senior American Jewish elected official faced intense backlash from fellow Democrats and party voters on Friday after leading a group of 10 Democratic senators who helped Republicans pass a temporary budget with deep cuts to healthcare, education and research programs.
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Schumer said he had never encountered antisemitism in the U.S. like that seen after Hamas’ October 7 attack. “I was born in 1950 in Brooklyn,” he said. “I was born in 1950, and for the first 50 years, it was sort of what you might call the golden age for Jewish people, not only in America, but forever, because we had never seen such acceptance. I experienced a little antisemitism.
“There was a moment, for instance, when I was 8 years old and we were driving home from my grandma’s house, and someone rolled down the window and said to my nice, decent father, ‘You [expletive] Jew!’ But it didn’t happen very much. It began changing in the beginning of the 21st century. And what I’ve written in the book is, when things get a little rough, that’s when antisemitism bubbles up.”
When you use the word ‘Zionist’ for Jew — you Zionist pig — you mean you Jewish pig
Schumer continued, “In 2001, for the first time after 9/11, we saw these conspiracy theories. Oh, the Jews did it, all the Jews evacuated the building, etc. It was not good, but it didn’t lead to a huge spread of antisemitism. 2008 got a little worse, because of the financial crisis and the ‘international conspiracy.’ There were all kinds of theories. George Soros.
“But it was October 7 that changed it all. And all of a sudden, antisemitism explodes in ways we’ve never seen, and overt antisemitism. Jewish bakeries being called Zionist bakeries and rocks thrown through their windows. People who wore yarmulkes or Jewish stars being screamed at, vilified, even punched. And it shocked us.
“For the first time, Jews I know started saying, ‘Oh, God, maybe it could happen here.’ No one thought it would happen here, but for the first time, the thought: Maybe it could happen here. And as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official, not only now, but ever in America, I felt an obligation. I had to write the book.”
Schumer addressed the ongoing debate over where criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism. “I’ve criticized the Israeli government, and I’ve criticized Netanyahu,” he said. “Criticism of Israel and how it conducted the war is not antisemitic. But it begins to shade over, and it shades over in a bunch of different ways. When you use the word ‘Zionist’ for Jew — you Zionist pig — you mean you Jewish pig.
“There was an incident on the New York subway and a bunch of people got on, protesters or whatever, and said, ‘All the Zionists, get off.’ When the head of the Brooklyn Museum, who was Jewish, but the Brooklyn Museum had nothing to do with Israel or taking positions on Israel — her house is smeared in red paint. That’s antisemitism. And a lot of the slogans that people use either are or slide into antisemitism.”
“The one that bothers me the most is genocide,” Schumer added. “Genocide is described as a country or some group tries to wipe out a whole race of people, a whole nationality of people. So if Israel was not provoked and just invaded Gaza and shot at random Palestinians, Gazans, that would be genocide. That’s not what happened. In fact, the opposite happened. And Hamas is much closer to genocidal than Israel.
“And I told Netanyahu, I said to him what I thought: You gotta [sic] reduce the number of casualties and make sure aid gets in and stuff like that. Here is the difficulty: Hamas has a different way of waging warfare, of using innocent Gazans as human shields. They put rockets in hospitals. They put their military supplies in schools. What is a country supposed to do when rockets are being fired from a school?
“So Israel’s been in a much more difficult position because of what Hamas did. And it’s not that Israel is above criticism. Of course it is not above criticism. But Hamas — I’m sorry, it matters so much to me. I feel so deeply about it. No one blames Hamas.”
The Senate minority leader went on, “The news reports every day for a while showed Palestinians being hurt and killed. I see the pictures of a little Palestinian boy without a leg, or one that sticks in my head, there’s a little girl, like 11, 12, crying because her parents were both killed. I ache for that. But on the news, they never mention that Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields. And so when these protesters come and accuse Israel of genocide, I said, ‘What about Hamas?’ They don’t even want to talk about Hamas.
“This is very important. Jewish people were subject, at least in my judgment, to the worst genocide ever. I put in the book, on the day they got Kyiv, the Nazis asked 33,000 Jews to line up by a trench, strip naked, and they shot them all dead. Every day Auschwitz killed 20,000 people. My family was killed from a place called Chortkiv in western Ukraine.
These same international organizations, when horrible things go on in Darfur or China or wherever, they look the other way
“And this was vicious and horrible. And it is vicious of the opponents to call this genocide. Criticize it? For sure. Say Israel went too far? For sure. And you know what it does? It increases antisemitism, because they’re making Israel and the Jewish people look like monsters, which they are not.”
Schumer also sharply criticized the UN for using the term “genocide” when describing the war in Gaza. “The U.N. has been anti-Israel, antisemitically against Israel. [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan was my idol. He became famous when in 1976 [it was 1975] they tried to pass a resolution, Zionism is racism.
“To say that the Jewish people should not have a state when every other people should have a state is antisemitism, the old double standard, ipso facto. And the international organizations, I have no faith in them being fair. These same international organizations, when horrible things go on in Darfur or China or wherever, they look the other way.”
Over the past year, Schumer has become a target of antisemitic rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly claimed that Schumer was not “Jewish anymore” because he’s a Democrat.
During his election campaign, Trump added that “Any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined,” despite the fact that of 34 Jewish members in the current Congress, 30 are Democrats.
However, Schumer appears unconcerned about Jewish voters — historically Democratic allies — shifting to the right. “There are different polling numbers, but most of them show a very high percentage of the Jews voted Democratic. Some of the more vocal people are on the right, and the Republican Party has made an attempt to make Israel and even antisemitism a political issue, which is horrible for Israel.
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“I told that to Netanyahu actually years ago, not to make it a political issue, but he did. He embraced Trump and did it. But I do think the progressive values of the Jewish people, the fact that we’ve been oppressed for so long, we’ve always had a sympathy for the underdog, that doesn’t go away. Obviously, with the situation in Israel, there are some people who felt the Democrats weren’t strong enough, but Biden was. He stuck by Israel very strongly, and most everyone recognizes that,” he added.
“And it cost him. It cost him a little. I’m not sure how much, but OK. I think that basically, the rank-and-file Jewish person, who is not that political, no more than anybody else, is fundamentally a Democrat and will stay that way.”