Self-proclaimed “Shomer Yisrael” Senator Charles Schumer has done it again. Abdul El-Sayed, whom Schumer did not endorse in his primary bid against Haley Stevens, suddenly received his backing following his unfortunate victory.
El-Sayed, who is famous for his anti-Semitic rhetoric against the Jewish state, referred to Israel as an apartheid, genocidal country. He refused to condemn the terrorist attack against a Reform synagogue, plus a whole host of other positions antithetical to Israel and America. Of course, he campaigned with notorious influencer Hasan Piker, who is unabashed in his hatred of Jews and his Holocaust denial.
Yet, Schumer has no problem pronouncing his support for El-Sayed, as he stated, “El-Sayed has brought new energy and new talent into the Democratic Party, but also to Michigan itself. We will win Michigan.”
This is not new for Schumer. He is famous for being a panderer and will say anything to aggrandize himself. Remember when, from the Senate floor, Schumer blathered on about the evils of the Netanyahu government and then had the audacity to write a book about anti-Semitism in America? As if the average person in America distinguishes between hatred of Israel and the Netanyahu government.
However, this is a new low even for Schumer: to back an avowed anti-Semitic candidate simply because he will bring another Senate seat to the Democratic Party. Where is his self-pride? Where is his decency? Where is his Jewishness? His pandering to the radical Left will do him no good. He will be primaried by the radical Left in either case. And his bona fides with the Left will do him no good.
Brad Lander, former comptroller of New York City, on his way to becoming a congressman, canceled all contracts with Israel and has made it clear whose side he’s on. In a city mosque, he proclaimed, to much applause, that he holds Israel guilty of genocide and of being an apartheid state, and he will vote to give no further aid to the State of Israel. It doesn’t get more despicable than that. He is in good company with Bernie Sanders in being a self-hating Jew.
Yet, recently, at a pro-Palestinian rally, he was shouted down as being a Zionist and told to get the **** out of there. It was such delicious irony to see the champion of the pro-Palestinian movement being eviscerated because, after all, he is Jewish. In the end, the anti-Semites always turn on the assimilationist Jews who thought they could escape their venom by adapting to the ways of the haters.
Schumer is a notch better than Lander because he did some good things for Israel over the years, including not voting with most Democrats to embargo weapons sales to the Jewish state. Of course, however, he did sign on with almost every Democratic senator in calling upon Netanyahu to curb so-called “settler violence,” a fiction in its own right. But his endorsement of El-Sayed is an unforgivable betrayal of his own people.
My message to the Landers and the Schumers of this world is: Don’t get so smug with our enemies. It will only come back to haunt you.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.
