When the Shomers Go Blind

I am not here to talk about the ascendancy of socialist and antisemitic left-wing ideology in NYC and what it means for the future of the city as well as the Democratic Party in general. I am sure that much red ink will be spilled on this topic in the weeks and months to come. I believe that the result of this election is but a culmination of the many years of indoctrination at institutions of higher learning, which has molded young and impressionable minds to the socialist goals to become the “worker intellingentsia” whose virtues were extolled by V.I. Lenin in the early days of the USSR.

But I will leave that to those more eloquent than me.

Nor am I here to make light of or draw any parallels about the cash bar at Zohran Mamdani’s Election Night party. I will leave that to those much funnier than me.

I am here, however, to talk about the abject failure of the so-called “adults in the room” to act with integrity and conviction rather than fear of losing their own power and a myopic desire to stick it to Trump, come hell or high water.

Enter Senator Chuck Schumer stage left. Many of us have sat through his oft-repeated spiel about how he believes that it is his duty to serve as a ‘shomer’ – a protector of the Jewish people – against forces that are set out to destroy them. An example of this bit of self-promotional narrative occurred, for example, in 2010 on the Nachum Segal Show:

“My name as you know comes from a Hebrew word. It comes from the word shomer, which mean guardian. My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov and I believe Hashem, actually, gave me name as one of my roles that is very important in the United States Senate to be a shomer [ ] for Israel and I will continue to be that with every bone in my body[.]”

Well, this shomer, perhaps seeing the political headwinds from the left flank of his own party or a fear that agreeing with Trump for once wouldn’t look good on his resume, apparently went blind and deaf. He refused to speak out about now Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s history of peddling in antisemitic tropes and his denial of the basic right of self-determination only to Israel and the Jewish people, not to mention the DSA’s platform on Israel, the party of which he is a proud, vocal and now best-known member.

• “I know people for whom [“from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada”] mean very different things, and to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many, is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
• “Israeli universities are both actively and passively complicit in the crimes of both the Israeli military and the Israeli government in all its settler-colonial forms[.]”
• “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”
• “My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up[.]”

To add insult to injury, Schumer played coy when asked who he had voted for in the mayoral election on November 4. My money is that he voted for Cuomo, but it doesn’t really matter. If he had said that he cast a ballot for Cuomo, he would be the recipient of the not-so-friendly fire from the many under-30 NYC voters, the majority of whom voted for Mamdani and who are likely to support an AOC run for his Senate seat. If he had said he voted for Mamdani, the few people that have a backbone would actually remember his shomer schtick and call him out on it.

Hakeem Jeffries and Kathy Hochul enter stage right. Neither felt the pull of internal conviction – kishkes – to rise to the challenge of the moment and call out the antisemitic history of the Mayor-Elect. Instead they kished tuchis to varying degrees in the hopes of forestalling a challenge to their political power.

Just this past summer, Governor Hochul touted her record of standing up to antisemitism by noting the increased funding the state had provided to non-profits “at risk for hate crimes and terrorism.” But that begs the question of why there is such a risk for hate crimes and terrorism. Why have Jewish houses of worship, schools and non-profits increased their security measures multi-fold and are forced to run regular safety and lockdown drills?

A good start may have been to recognize the evils of the idee fixe of Mamdani and his ilk that somehow all ills that befall the world are connected to Israel and the Jews. And at least pretend to have some principles when it comes to these issues. Alas it was not to be.

None of this is to say that the results on Election Night in NYC were a surprise. Mamdani’s Democratic challengers never had the unyielding support of the front-runner nor the coherence of the messaging (free stuff!!!!) except that they all agreed that Trump bad. They had lots and lots of baggage. And now their job is to pack their baggage and go home while the fox is left in charge of the henhouse.