Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spent decades telling Jewish audiences that his name meant something important. In a 2010 interview with Jewish radio host Nachum Segal, Schumer said it “comes from the word shomer, guardian, watcher. My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov. And I believe Hashem gave me that name. One of my roles, very important in the United States Senate, is to be a shomer — to be the shomer Yisrael. And I will continue to be that with every bone in my body.” On the Senate floor in 2024, in what was billed as the most important speech of his career, he called himself the first Jewish majority leader in American history and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official the country has ever produced. He wrote a book last year titled Antisemitism in America: A Warning.