Chuck Schumer to send ‘warning’ about antisemitism in new book

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is set to have a new book out next winter that will detail the resurgence of antisemitism in the United States, as well as reflect on his own experience as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the country.

Grand Central Publishing, part of the Hachette Book Group, announced Wednesday that the New York senator’s Antisemitism in America: A Warning will be released on Feb. 18. next year. An online description of the book says it is “a warning, informed by the lessons of history, about what can happen when the ‘world’s oldest hatred’ is allowed to rise, unchecked.”

“In very personal terms, it will engage with debates over the purpose and meaning of Israel, and help draw a line between legitimate criticism of its government and when criticism of Israel as a Jewish homeland verges into antisemitism,” a description of the book said.

The book will be partially autobiographical about his upbringing in Brooklyn and his time in elected office in Washington. Schumer will reportedly write about the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol in 2021 and the recent wave of antisemitism against Jewish students on campuses and attacks on synagogues, according to the Associated Press.

“If America fails to understand the context and history of antisemitism, if America’s darker impulses ultimately overwhelm its better angels, an age-old truth will prove true once again: that antisemitism inevitably leads to violence against Jews and a rise in bigotry in our society at large. Jewish Americans never thought it could happen here in America,” Schumer said in a statement. “Now, for the first time, they’re worried it could. As the Irish writer Conor Cruise O’Brien once said, ‘Antisemitism is a light sleeper.’”

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Schumer delivered a powerful speech concerning the rise of antisemitism in America last year. In the remarks, the senator warned against blaming Jewish Americans for Israel’s actions and listed out various antisemitic incidents that had taken place in the days and weeks after the Oct. 7 attack. 

“I believe there are plenty of people who chant, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ not because they hate Jewish people but because they support a better future for Palestinians. But there is no question that Hamas and other terrorist organizations have used this slogan to represent their intention to eliminate Jewish people not only from Israel but from every corner of the earth,” Schumer said in the speech.

Schumer and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been on icy terms after the New York senator called for the Israeli government to hold new elections, claiming Netanyahu has “lost his way” as the country risks becoming an international “pariah” over the war in Gaza, in a speech on the Senate floor in March.

The 73-year-old authored another book 17 years ago with Daniel Squadron called Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time.