It has been quite a week for Chuck Schumer. When I spoke to the Senate minority leader on Monday, we talked about a lot of things: the direction of his party; how Democrats are communicating their opposition to President Trump; and his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” which will be published March 18.

That was Monday. When we spoke again on Saturday afternoon, it was after an extraordinary few days in Congress, during which Democrats had to decide whether to vote for a Republican federal spending bill or to allow a government shutdown. House Democrats voted in near unanimity against the bill. Schumer initially said that he would as well, but in a surprising about-face on Friday, he and eight other Democratic senators joined Republicans, and the bill passed.

The backlash to Schumer from his own party for what some see as capitulation to Trump has been swift and loud, including calls for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to challenge him in his next Senate run. In our second conversation, I asked Schumer about the furious response to his vote, how he can lead a party that seems to be enraged at him and his relationship with Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader.

You write that you rarely faced antisemitism when you were growing up in Brooklyn. What was the moment that you felt that things changed in this country that made you want to write the book now? So, I was born in 1950, and for the first 50 years, it was sort of what you might call the golden age for Jewish people, not only in America, but forever, because we had never seen such acceptance. I experienced a little antisemitism. There was a moment, for instance, when I was 8 years old and we were driving home from my grandma’s house, and someone rolled down the window and said to my nice, decent father, “You [expletive] Jew!” But it didn’t happen very much. It began changing in the beginning of the 21st century. And what I’ve written in the book is, when things get a little rough, that’s when antisemitism bubbles up. Conor Cruise O’Brien said, “Antisemitism is a light sleeper.” So in 2001, for the first time after 9/11, we saw these conspiracy theories. Oh, the Jews did it, all the Jews evacuated the building, etc. It was not good, but it didn’t lead to a huge spread of antisemitism. 2008 got a little worse, because of the financial crisis and the “international conspiracy.” There were all kinds of theories. George Soros. But it was Oct. 7 that changed it all. And all of a sudden, antisemitism explodes in ways we’ve never seen, and overt antisemitism. Jewish bakeries being called Zionist bakeries and rocks thrown through their windows. People who wore yarmulkes or Jewish stars being screamed at, vilified, even punched. And it shocked us. For the first time, Jews I know started saying, “Oh, God, maybe it could happen here.” No one thought it would happen here, but for the first time, the thought: Maybe it could happen here. And as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official, not only now, but ever in America, I felt an obligation. I had to write the book.

When you were entering politics, how did you navigate how much to make Jewishness part of your brand? When a new candidate comes to me and says, “What’s your advice?” I say: “My best advice is be yourself. The public may not know the difference between your education platform and your opponent’s, but they can smell a phony a mile away.” And then I say: “I’m from Brooklyn. Sometimes it helps me, sometimes it hurts me. But I know one thing: If I tried not to be from Brooklyn, I’d be worse than whatever I am.” Well, that’s a synonym for Jewish. So I was always Jewish. But it was never that vital to my career. And when I ran in 1998, I would go upstate, and I was wondering, How would I be accepted, as somebody who was obviously Jewish, although I didn’t talk about it a lot? I was. It was very gratifying. You know, very little antisemitism, and when I got to Congress, the same. There was some. One of the senior guys when I got on the Judiciary Committee said, “Schumer, welcome to the Jew-diciary Committee.” So there was some of that.

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