Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the most senior Jewish leader in the US, says he is appalled by the rise in antisemitism since October 7.
In an interview with the New York Times, Schumer said that he did not believe that US Jews would ever live in fear. "I was born in 1950, and for the first 50 years, it was what you could call the Golden Age for the Jewish people. I experienced some antisemitism. There was one incident, for example, when I was about eight years old and we were driving home from my grandmother's house. Someone pulled down the car window and called out to my father, 'Damn Jew.' But it didn't happen often. That started to change at the beginning of the 21st century."
Schumer emphasized that "October 7th, 2023 changed everything. Suddenly, antisemitism has exploded in a way we have never seen before. It has become more visible and uglier than ever. Jewish bakeries have been attacked with rocks, Jews wearing yarmulkas or Stars of David are attacked with shouting, slander, and sometimes even physical violence. This shocks us.”
“For the first time since I was born, I am hearing Jews around me who are afraid of the situation and are saying to themselves, 'Maybe it will happen to me too.'"
The senator also addressed the issue of the thin line between antisemitism and necessary criticism of the Israel. "I have criticized the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Criticism of Israel and the way it has conducted the war is not antisemitic, but antisemitism is beginning to intersperse with it. When you use the word 'Zionist' for a Jew – 'you are a Zionist pig' – you mean a Jewish pig. There was an incident on the New York subway when a group of people came up and said, 'All Zionists go down.' Many of the slogans that people use also spill over into antisemitism."
He was outraged by what he said was the easy use of the term "genocide," in response to the October 7th massacre. "Genocide is an attempt to eliminate an entire race of people, an entire nation. If Israel invades Gaza for no reason and shoots at random Palestinians, it is genocide. But that is not what happened. It was the exact opposite, and Hamas tried to carry out a genocide. At the same time, Hamas uses innocent Gazans as human shields. They put rockets in hospitals. They put their military equipment in schools. What is a country supposed to do when rockets are fired from a school? At that time, Israel was in a much more difficult situation because of what Hamas did. Of course, Israel is not above criticism, but no one blames Hamas, and this is delusional.”
“The news never mentions that Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields. These demonstrators don't even want to talk about Hamas. Jews have endured the worst genocide ever. Every day, 20,000 people were murdered in Auschwitz. My family was murdered in Ukraine. Don't talk about genocide. Don't behave like antisemites," he adds.
Schumer has a lot to say about the UN’s conduct and language in this context. "The UN has been anti-Israel and antisemitic against Israel since the 1970s, when they tried to pass a resolution that Zionism is racism. The old double standard, when terrible things happen in Darfur or China or anywhere else, those same organizations look the other way."