It turns out that Chuck Schumer really is a shomer. The first Jewish Senate majority leader and decades-long Democratic Party big shot from New York has always told the Jewish community that he is Schumer the shomer, which means guardian in Hebrew. He didn’t just have their back—he had their front. Schumer would stand sentry before the Jewish community.
Well, he was kind of right. Schumer is a guardian. But in a reversal of his self-serving narrative, Schumer offers his protection not to his fellow Jews but to those pursuing the Jews with intent to do harm. Schumer’s attic is for the anti-Semite, should he ever need a place to crash.
That’s just one of several key takeaways from the House Education Committee’s report on anti-Semitism on campus and the role that Congress has played in it since Oct. 7. It is a congressional document of immense historical significance. And it is infuriating.
The background to this report is straightforward. The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre catalyzed the long-simmering anti-Semitism at elite American universities into a full-blown breakdown of societal norms around Jew-baiting and institutional discrimination the likes of which have not seen since the 1920s. That crisis exploded onto the streets of major American cities as well as the quads of college campuses and major arts and cultural institutions. It became clear that schools were widely violating the civil-rights protections of Jewish students, necessitating the federal government’s involvement. The Biden administration balked, and the GOP-led Education Committee stepped in.
The hearings that followed led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and, eventually, Columbia. The committee hearings were responsible—primarily, but not solely—for the only cases of real accountability.
That run of accountability, as well as further investigation into the plight of Jews on campus, was exactly what Chuck Schumer tried to stop dead in its tracks. The leaders of Columbia, where the anti-Semitism was and is among the worst in the country, eventually came before Congress in April. Three months earlier, President Minouche Shafik met with Schumer, and the supposed shomer told her that Democrats had no problem with her and that only Republicans cared about the anti-Semitism crisis on campus. His office advised Shafik not to meet with Republicans on the Hill. When Columbia Trustees co-chair David Greenwald texted previous co-chair Jonathan Lavine about the situation, Lavine responded by saying “Let’s hope the Dems win the house back.” Greenwald wrote back: “Absolutely.”
This is the message that Schumer had sent about anti-Semitism on campus and that message came through loud and clear: Investigations into Jew-hatred would only occur under a Republican majority. Putting Democrats in charge would put a stop to the government’s efforts to help Jews on campus.
It’s worth noting that there are honorable Democrats who vigorously disagree with Schumer. Sen. John Fetterman, Rep. Ritchie Torres, and Gov. Josh Shapiro are well-known figures who won’t let their party be silent. Unfortunately, the actions of a congressional delegation are driven primarily by the party’s leadership. Schumer was wrong to suggest that only Republicans care about anti-Semitism. But he was right to say that his party’s leadership had the power to shut down or otherwise impede the congressional investigation.
The political fallout for Democrats will be severely limited by partisan-inspired media indifference. We can be sure that had Republicans been found to obstruct a yearlong congressional investigation into campus anti-Semitism, the story would be impossible to miss. But that doesn’t mean the conditions that led to Schumer’s monumental act of cowardice and dereliction of his congressional duties will go away.
It was striking to see Nikki Fried, the hyperpartisan chair of the Florida Democratic Party, admit that “What has happened since [the Hamas attacks] in American politics has made a lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters start to question the Democratic Party.” It’s not only, she told Florida Jewish Democrats, “Republican Jewish friends” who are uneasy about the Democratic Party’s lurch so far toward the anti-Zionist left.
Though the Jewish vote is, as always, unlikely to cost Democrats the election, it is simply undeniable that non-Republicans and non-conservatives are fairly disgusted with the type of behavior displayed by Schumer. Fried and other Democratic officials have been trying to get the party to at least acknowledge, let alone address, the concerns of Jewish voters.
Obviously that won’t happen before the election, which is four days away. And it is unlikely to happen so long as Chuck Schumer is in charge. That is not just a political travesty. It is a Jewish tragedy.
