Schumer’s Purim

By: Larry Gordon

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

It’s a Purim story early in the season.

Senator Chuck Schumer, who knows next to nothing about Jewish life, was symbolically constructing a gallows of 50 feet high with the hope of politically and metaphorically hanging President Trump’s presidency on it.

In the end, it’s Chuck Schumer’s political career and his Senate leadership that is left dangling in the air as is only right. There’s a great deal that Schumer has to account for—and will have to pay for—at some point in his ugly, dissolving political career.

The most poignant and justifiable consequence would be if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez runs against Schumer and beats him in the race for Senate in 2028. At the end of the day, the most astute political analysis as far as Israel and the Jewish community are concerned, is that neither of these candidates are good. So, at this point, we’re not worse off than where we were before.

Let’s set aside the Schumer shut down for a moment and recall how Senator Schumer turned on Israel at a critical time at the height of the war with Hamas in Gaza. It was at the zenith of that conflict as Iran was threatening to launch nukes against the Jewish State that Schumer thought it would be the “best time” to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

President Trump once observed in his signature style that any Jew who doesn’t vote for him ought to have his “head examined.” In other words, Trump was saying that if you have a choice between him and Kamala Harris, and you chose Harris, then there’s definitely something wrong with your thought process. And that describes Chuck Schumer perfectly: he thinks poorly.

And that is where the Purim story comes into play. Schumer genuinely thought he had Trump where he wanted him: the government shutdown was passing its record-breaking 40th day, government workers were not being paid, and air traffic controllers were not showing up at work.

Flights were experiencing delays and air travel was being turned upside down. Just as a sidebar, we left JFK on Sunday morning for a short flight down to Palm Beach. Contrary to most news reports, our flight was not delayed more than the average of about 15–20 minutes.

We were scheduled to arrive at around 3:30 p.m., but then I noticed that the plane was circling PBI on a wide path with a circumference of about seven miles.

Of course, I thought that the circling was caused by the shortage of air traffic controllers, but later I found out after we landed that the nearly 45-minute delay had nothing to do with Schumer’s shutdown. Apparently, President Trump had spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and was planning to attend the Washington Commanders (former Redskins) football game in D.C. For the president to take off and fly safely, ten miles of airspace needed to be cleared for Air Force One. As a result, we circled and waited for the president’s plane to reach cruising altitude.

And now we’re pretty much at the end of this story and President Trump has outsmarted the “Shomer Yisrael” who has always been a deceiver and a fraud on that count. We know after all these years that the only thing Chuck was watching over was his own political career.

But that is coming to an end because Schumer has proven himself to be a failed leader of his party.

Most recently he failed when he oversaw the shutdown of the government in an effort to paralyze it.

That was a monumental failure because, in the end, eight Senate Democrats had enough of his shenanigans (which ended up only hurting his own party), leaving him in a lurch and pretty much putting an end to Schumer’s political career.

Chuck thought he had finally checkmated Trump and was going to trap him in a political corner from where he would not be able to extricate himself. Wrong again. As it turns out, the result was the opposite. Instead, Schumer was exposed as a Machiavellian plotter with no concern about who his actions were hurting and the damage he would inflict on the American people.

If a community can hold a grudge against one person, then all of us in the Jewish community can justifiably say that we’re not at all pleased with our senior senator, Chuck Schumer.

Moreover, our junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, performs just as poorly politically. In fact, as a senator from the greatest state in the union, which has a Jewish population second only to Israel, we basically haven’t heard a peep out of her on the subject of Israel and the existential battle it is fighting in this ongoing Israel-Hamas war. If Schumer should decide to step down after this political fiasco, it would be best for the Empire State if he took Gillibrand with him.

On the other hand, it’s possible that Schumer is suffering from whatever ailed Joe Biden. But at 74, Schumer should still have some good years ahead of him, which is why he’s so concerned that in 2028, AOC is going to send him packing. Take for example Senator Charles Grassley, who at 92 years old is at the top of his game.

So, perhaps age is not really a factor. As President Trump might say, perhaps Schumer is just a “low-IQ person.”

Back in the Megillah there was no mention of Haman’s age. We know he had ten sons and a wife who told him not to antagonize Mordechai and the Jews, but he didn’t listen to her. So, in the end they hung him out to dry.

In our case, Chuck Schumer is being politically hung out to dry because he miscalculated and did stupid things. You know—low IQ.

The Schumer-Trump face-off of the last few weeks was not dissimilar to the Mordechai-Haman confrontation back in ancient Persia, which is today’s Iran before the B-2 bomber was rolled out and put into use.

Chuck thought he had Donald beat this time. He was sadly mistaken. 

Our senior senator from New York, the man who asked Columbia University to look the other way while Jewish students were being attacked (then wrote a book about how to combat antisemitism while encouraging it), and then took a stand against Bibi and Israel during its most crucial hour—perhaps it’s time for him to step down and go home.

Bye, Chuck. 

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.