Schumer: Antisemitism on the left ‘much harder to grapple with’ than antisemitism on the right

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 14. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh March 16, 2025

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has long warned about antisemitism on the right — from neo-Nazis in Charlottesville to white nationalist conspiracy theories on the campaign trail. But in his new book, set to publish Tuesday, he argues that the antisemitism coming from the left can be just as insidious — and, in some ways, even harder to fight.

In Antisemitism in America: A Warning, Schumer — who in 2021 became the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history — also calls out pro-Palestinian protesters who, he writes, can cross the line from legitimate criticism of Israel into dangerous antisemitic rhetoric.

Calling Israel’s war in Gaza “genocide” or chanting “from the river to the sea” fuels antisemitism and endangers Jews, Schumer argues, whether or not those who use such language realize its implications.

“Jewish people were subject, at least in my judgment, to the worst genocide ever,” Schumer said, referencing the Holocaust and his family members who died, in an interview with The Daily podcast posted Sunday by The New York Times. For anti-war activists to accuse Israel of committing genocide in its war against Hamas is “vicious,” Schumer said. “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 traveled to Israel days after Oct. 7 and said the massacre in the Israeli kibuttzim reminded him of what happened to his great-grandmother, who lived in Ukraine — then part of Galicia — when the Nazis invaded in 1941. SS stormtroopers ordered her to gather all her children and grandchildren on her porch and gunned down all 17 members of the family.

Schumer’s remarks preview one of the central themes of his book: how antisemitism has morphed in American life and become a bipartisan problem, though one with different characteristics on the left and right. It also offers a personal perspective, tracing his journey from a Brooklyn childhood to becoming one of the most powerful figures in Washington.

The Democratic leader in the Senate is now facing calls to step down from his role after he backed a Republican spending bill to avoid a government shutdown over the weekend.

The following are highlights of Schumer’s podcast interview and some key excerpts from the book. 

Jewish pride and experiencing antisemitism

Schumer, 74, said that for the first 50 years of his life, American Jews experienced a kind of golden age. We “were accepted in ways we never thought,” he said, citing the widespread pride among Jewish fans when Sandy Koufax, a pitcher for the LA Dodgers, chose to sit out the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. “That made us so proud,” he said.

Schumer said he rarely faced antisemitism while growing up in Brooklyn, but he remembered the moment it first struck. He was eight years old, riding in the car with his father, when another driver rolled down their window and yelled, “You f***ing Jew.”

Still, Schumer writes, antisemitism had little effect on his political rise. When he ran for Senate in 1998 against Republican incumbent Al D’Amato, he was gratified that his Jewishness wasn’t an issue for voters. “Although I didn’t talk about it a lot,” he acknowledged.

However, he said, when he was elected to the House and joined the Judiciary Committee, a congressman from Texas said, “Schumer, welcome to the Jew-diciary committee.”

In the book, Schumer wrote that the “lack of fanfare” around his election as the Senate Democratic leader in 2017 was a reflection of the integration of Jews in the fabric of American society, and that it “was hardly an earth-shattering moment.”

The end of a golden age 

For the past 24 years, Schumer writes, antisemitism has taken a dramatic turn — fueled by conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11 attacks and accusations that Jews were responsible for the 2008 financial crisis to the most recent wave of hate following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. “The widespread antisemitism is a serious problem in America, and it’s getting worse.”

In the book, Schumer highlights the dog whistles invoked by President Donald Trump. He cites Trump’s remark that there were “very fine people on both sides” after neo-Nazis marched at a 2017 Charlottesville rally, his frequent nods to antisemitic tropes about Jewish money and power and his associations with far-right figures who openly spread hate.

Last week, Trump called Schumer a “Palestinian” and said Schumer is “not Jewish anymore.”

Antisemitism from the left

Schumer argues that antisemitism on the left — harassment of Jewish-owned businesses, Jewish students being targeted on college campuses, and protesters vilifying Jews as Zionist oppressors — is less overt but no less dangerous. “For the first time,” he said in the New York Times interview, “Jews started saying, ‘Oh God, maybe it could happen here.’”

Schumer writes that left-wing antisemitism is “much harder to grapple with than antisemitism on the right” because it often comes from political allies and because it can masquerade as human rights activism.

“Criticism of Israel and how it conducted the war is not antisemitic,” Schumer said in the podcast interview, “but it begins to shade over.”

Last March, Schumer harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for rejecting the Biden administration’s proposal to discuss the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war, and called for new Israeli elections. He writes that his longtime relationship with the Israeli leader took a turn for the worse once Trump became president in 2017. He said he warned Netanyahu not to turn Israel into a political football between the two parties. “But he did,” Schumer said. “He embraced Trump and did it.”

Schumer – who joined protests against the Vietnam War as a college student in the 1960s – said he is a firm believer in free speech and the right to protest. But he said the defacing of Jewish property by pro-Palestinian protesters, the harassment of Jewish students on college campuses, and the slogans chanted during demonstrations “are or slide into antisemitism.”

Schumer on Columbia, Trump’s crackdown, and the Jewish vote

Asked during the podcast about the Trump administration’s decision to cut $400 million in grants to Columbia University, Schumer said that colleges “shrugged their shoulders, looked the other way” and didn’t address antisemitic incidents. But he said he’s concerned that the move was “done in typical Trump fashion, indiscriminately, without looking at its effect.”

Schumer also criticized the Trump administration’s order to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and a leader in the pro-Palestinian protests, saying it’s up to the Department of Justice to prove the allegations against him. “If he broke the law, he should be deported,” Schumer said in the interview. “If he didn’t break the law and just peacefully protested, he should not be deported. It’s plain and simple.”

In the podcast interview, Schumer also discussed the Jewish vote in the 2024 presidential election. Post-election polls showed that Vice President Kamala Harris received between 63% and 71% of the Jewish vote, while Trump got between 26% and 36%, a higher portion of Jews than he did in 2020 or 2016. Both the Harris and the Trump campaigns highlighted the rise in antisemitism, including the pro-Palestinian protests, in their outreach to undecided Jewish voters in key swing states.

Schumer dismissed concerns about a realignment, saying it was a result of the Republicans turning Israel and antisemitism into a political issue, with some voters feeling the Democrats weren’t strong enough on Israel.

He maintained that the “rank-and-file Jewish person who is not that political is fundamentally a Democrat and will stay that way.”