Schumer has come a long way.
Now, after victories for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in competitive Senate runoffs in Georgia, Schumer whose career took off from the depths of dirty Holocaust digs and Yiddish swears will become the first-ever Jewish Senate Majority leader.
“The fact that he will be elevated to that position by the victories of a Jewish and Black candidate in the South should give us all hope for a more just world,” said Rob Raich, a longtime former president of Schumer’s Park Slope synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim, in an email. “I believe Senator Schumer will be a strong leader of our country and its constitution, and a staunch defender of Israel and the Jewish people.”