Chuck Schumer can’t catch a break. Not long after being sworn in as the first Jewish leader of the U.S. Senate, the Democratic Party came down with a bad case of anti-Semitism. It inspired him to write a book, Antisemitism in America: A Warning, in which he recounts how John F. Kennedy’s assassination really dampened the vibe at his bar mitzvah the following day. The ceremony went ahead as planned, unlike Schumer’s tour to promote his new book, which was postponed due to threats of protest from anti-Semites and other Democrats fuming about his refusal to pick a pointless fight with Donald Trump. That’s just as well, though, because the senator’s warning about anti-Semitism appears to lack a viable constituency.
Emily Tamkin is a perfect example. She’s a Jewish foreign affairs reporter at the Washington Post and a former Schumer intern (back in 2009, so not some Gen Z weirdo). If she won’t endorse Schumer’s warning about the rise of anti-Semitism in America, including the violently expressed sympathy from liberal activists for Hamas terrorists after Oct. 7, who will? Alas, Tamkin was not a fan. “Reading it … made me realize that I didn’t want a warning on antisemitism,” she writes in her review for the Post. “I wanted the highest-elected Jewish official in American history to meet a moment that has already arrived.”
Among other things, Tamkin faults Schumer for failing to embrace a more intersectional approach to anti-Semitism, a criticism he foresees in the book by lamenting the liberal Jews who are reluctant to discuss anti-Semitism without also addressing “Islamophobia or racism or competing narratives in the Middle East.” The Senate leader’s condemnation of anti-Semitism on the left is unfair, Tamkin argues, not least because he refuses to condone the Hamas sympathizers who accuse Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza. She devotes three whole paragraphs (of her book review) to complaining about Donald Trump. All told, it’s a pretty good summary of why Schumer’s warning to his liberal allies—”Be careful. Do not let passion overwhelm your better instincts.”—is unlikely to prevail.
That’s a shame, because Schumer makes an earnest and compelling argument, drawn from personal experience and family history, about the unique perniciousness of anti-Semitism, as well as the existential importance of Israel as a “place you can go where you can be safe and be Jewish.” He documents how several factors that exist today, such as social unrest and the democratization of media, have consistently fueled a rise in anti-Semitism at various points throughout history. Your humble (and gentile) reviewer found these portions of the book enlightening and persuasive. It’s even charming at times, as when Schumer recounts his first visit to Israel and the pride he felt upon seeing a “Jewish garbageman.” Nevertheless, when the personal anecdotes give way to politics, Schumer writes like a career politician who has held public office since age 25—afraid to offend anyone, and pleasing no one in the process. The pages are littered with euphemisms and languid caveats, endless variations of the “to be sure…” paragraph in an ultimately futile effort to assuage his critics.
Schumer recalls how his own staff urged him not to speak out about anti-Semitism after Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and the campuses of elite universities were overrun by supporters of this “justified” act of anticolonial “resistance.” Speaking out was “politically risky,” they warned. Schumer agrees, but doesn’t really explain why. If he’s correct that anti-Semitism on the left is confined to the “radical fringe,” then what’s the big deal? He barely mentions the avowed Hamas sympathizers currently representing his own party in Congress. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) he commends for allegedly regretting her anti-Semitic outbursts. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) he omits entirely.
The senator might have considered the political risks of wearing Kente cloth and kneeling in the Capitol to protest racism in 2020, or the Democratic Party’s reluctance to condemn the violent mobs laying waste to America’s cities in the name of defunding the police. He might have pondered how this insane reaction, generously described as a “new era of historical re-examination,” contributed to what he even more generously describes as the “intellectual framework” through which the political left views every conflict as a “struggle between oppressor and oppressed” where violence against the oppressor is inherently justified. Schumer recounts his experience as a student activist at Harvard, where he grew disillusioned with the “arrogant and nasty” left-wing radicals and their “counterproductive” affinity for antisocial behavior, not to mention their pathological antagonism toward Israel. But he declines to explore how and why these radical ideologues and their groveling apologists came to dominate—on his watch—many of America’s elite institutions.
To his great credit, Schumer might be the first Democratic politician to cite reporting from the Washington Free Beacon—about the Columbia University deans who were caught texting each other “antisemitic tropes” and vomit emojis during a discussion about Jewish life on campus—without an accompanying condemnation. He blasts the elite universities for their “widespread failure to discipline both faculty and students who engaged in overtly antisemitic activities and those that made Jewish students feel unsafe on campus,” and congratulates himself for pressuring schools to take a harder line. Schumer does not mention another Free Beacon report that directly contradicts this claim, based on internal messages between Columbia’s leaders who relayed the senator’s view (in January 2024) that the “best strategy is to keep heads down” and “hope the Dems win the house back” because the university’s political problems “are really only among Republicans.” Has Schumer genuinely changed his mind since then? Or, as a cynic might conclude, has he simply reevaluated the extent to which pervasive left-wing nonsense on campus is politically damaging to Democrats?
The book becomes increasingly incoherent as the focus shifts to Israel and the “Israel-related antisemitism” problem on the left. He criticizes the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for eschewing the “norms of accepted diplomacy” by working with Republicans in 2015 to derail Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Schumer voted against the deal, in part because it didn’t require Iran to stop funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorists who keep attacking Israel. Oct. 7 reinforced his belief in that decision, but he’s still concerned that Bibi’s actions—then and now—could “ruin relationships” with the Democrats who support giving money to Israel’s enemies. His point, to the extent he has one, gets lost in the muddle.
Schumer’s other critiques of Netanyahu are essentially critiques of the Israeli voters who keep voting for him. To be sure, the senator concedes, Israelis “bear the scars of decades of failed peace processes” and unrelenting terrorism, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t give up on trying to make peace with Hamas by convincing the terrorists to accept a “moderate, demilitarized Palestinian state.” It’s not the most compelling argument, and is unlikely to appeal to anyone, least of all the “river to the sea” crowd in his own party.
Democrats must follow his lead by speaking out, Schumer ultimately insists, in order to “drown out the antisemite, to be louder than their hatred.” Anyone interested in learning more about how to fearlessly confront anti-Semitism within one’s own ranks should check out the senator’s book tour. Dates and times TBD.
Antisemitism in America: A Warning
by Chuck Schumer
Grand Central Publishing, 256 pp., $28
Original News Source – Washington Free Beacon
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