Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, today rebuked Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) for his “counterproductive interference” in Israel’s democratic government, in a floor speech blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

CJV President Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld made the following statement:

The leader who has ‘lost his way’ here is Sen. Schumer himself, who is using Netanyahu as a bogeyman for hatred directed against Jews for having the temerity to defend Jewish lives. Every Israeli, and every committed Jew, recognizes the malignant hatred of those calling Israel ‘genocidal’ as it eliminates a genocidal terror organization, or calling for a ‘ceasefire’ to permit the terrorists to regroup, rearm, and again murder the innocent.

Leader McConnell is right to call Sen. Schumer’s statement hypocritical, but it goes further: Mr. Schumer can best remind us that his name comes from Shomer, Hebrew for guardian, by calling out members of his own party trafficking in classically antisemitic tropes, like Reps. Omar and Tlaib. He should apologize for his counterproductive interference in Israel’s democratic governance and self-defense.

Also published in the Israel National News and the Baltimore Jewish Life