Schumer warns of violent antisemitism at event with New York, US leaders

US Senator Chuck Schumer condemns rising antisemitism at an event in New York City with Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The event at Manhattan’s Lincoln Square Synagogue, hosted by the Orthodox Union, is meant to highlight support from public officials for the Jewish community amid record levels of antisemitism. Last month saw 45 reported anti-Jewish incidents in New York City, far more than against any other group.

“I feel the same dread, the same alarm that past generations have felt when antisemitism rears its ugly head,” Schumer says, naming deadly antisemitic attacks in recent years in Poway, Pittsburgh, Monsey and Jersey City.

“All American Jews know and remember the names and incidents I have mentioned. They are seared into our memories and unless we can come together as a community and a country to address this crisis I fear we will have to add more names to that list,” says Schumer, the highest-ranking Jew in US political history.

“When the former president of the United States welcomes at his own dinner table several vicious antisemites, and rather than apologize afterward he lectures Jewish leaders, it is incumbent on all of us to speak out,” he says.

Both the far-left and far-right share blame for stoking antisemitism, he says, as well as some anti-Israel sentiment.

“I know too well what can happen when a society turns its back on its Jewish citizens,” he says, relating how 30 members of his family were gunned down by Nazis during the Holocaust.

“The US, Baruch Hashem, praise God, is not Nazi Germany. The roots of democracy and tolerance are much deeper here,” Schumer says.

“The roots of tolerance go deep, I would argue deeper than the roots of bigotry, in America, but again those roots of tolerance cry out for voices to strengthen them, to remember them, to speak out in favor,” he says.