Wednesday, December 19, 2018

THE 1998 CAMPAIGN: THE SENATE; Schumer Fires Counterattack at D'Amato on the Holocaust

THE 1998 CAMPAIGN: THE SENATE; Schumer Fires Counterattack at D'Amato on the Holocaust

THE 1998 CAMPAIGN: THE SENATE; Schumer Fires Counterattack at D'Amato on the Holocaust

Invoking relatives he had lost in the Holocaust, Representative Charles E. Schumer yesterday assailed Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato for gathering Holocaust survivors to attack Mr. Schumer's record on Jewish issues. He also berated Mr. D'Amato for disparaging him with a Yiddish vulgarism at a meeting with Jewish leaders earlier this week.
In the latest indication of the attention that both candidates are paying to Jewish voters, Mr. Schumer chastised his opponent both for staging the news conference at a Holocaust memorial on Sunday morning, and then for insulting him with the Yiddishism. His vehement response comes at a time when Mr. D'Amato's attacks on Mr. Schumer's Congressional attendance record have largely dominated the campaign.
''I lost family in the Holocaust, and my wife lost family in the Holocaust,'' Mr. Schumer said in grim tones, fairly leaping at the question at the end of a news conference about gun control. Aides said Mr. Schumer's great-grandmother and seven of her nine children were killed by Nazis.
''Yesterday, Al D'Amato used a cheap slur against me, and then, when asked, lied about it,'' the Congressman, a Brooklyn Democrat, continued. ''Al D'Amato and I are meeting in debate Saturday. I challenge you, Al D'Amato, to say to my face that I am not committed to victims of the Holocaust. I challenge you at the debate Saturday to use that cheap slur.''
Mr. D'Amato at first said he did not recall using the vulgarism, which was first reported in the latest issue of Jewish Week, dated Oct. 23. ''I have absolutely no knowledge of ever having made that statement,'' Mr. D'Amato said. ''I have no knowledge of it. Certainly never in a public domain.''
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But a number of participants at the private meeting on Tuesday, including former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who is Mr. D'Amato's most prominent Jewish supporter, confirmed that the Republican Senator had in fact called Mr. Schumer ''a putzhead.'' At the same meeting, they said, Mr. D'Amato referred to Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, as ''Jerry Waddler,'' a presumed reference to Mr. Nadler's substantial weight.
Last night, Mr. D'Amato sent a letter to Mr. Schumer in which he implicitly admitted using the Yiddishism -- but remained on the attack, asserting that it was Mr. Schumer who was trying to ''inject religious differences'' into the race.
Making no mention of his earlier denials, Mr. D'Amato wrote: ''The Yiddish word I used to describe you at a private meeting means 'fool.' Again, you are trying to twist that into a religious slur. And again, I stand by my remark 100 percent.''
In ''The Joys of Yiddish,'' by Leo Rosten (Simon & Schuster), the word ''putz'' is defined as ''vulgar slang for 'penis,' '' which is used as ''a term of contempt for a fool'' or ''a jerk.'' Mr. Rosten adds a cautionary note: ''Putz is not to be used lightly or when women or children are around.''
Yesterday's exchange was another example of Mr. Schumer's using against Mr. D'Amato a weapon that the Senator himself had employed in the past under somewhat different circumstances. The Congressman's injured tone recalled the way Mr. D'Amato reacted six years ago, almost to the day, after his Democratic challenger, Robert Abrams, called Mr. D'Amato a ''fascist.'' Mr. D'Amato presented himself as a sympathetic figure under attack, and forced Mr. Abrams to defend himself against charges of anti-Italian bias.
Mr. D'Amato's impolitic description of two of New York City's best-known Democratic members of Congress was not entirely out of character for the Senator, who once used a fake Japanese accent to mock Lance Ito, the Japanese-American judge in the O. J. Simpson murder trial.
But Mr. D'Amato, a disciplined politician, normally keeps a tight rein on his public utterances in the middle of a campaign. And some of his advisers expressed concern last night that his remarks, coupled with criticism over Mr. D'Amato's Holocaust news conference, could pose a problem for the Senator.
There clearly was an element of calculation in Mr. Schumer's attack. Although he and Mr. Nadler had accused Mr. D'Amato of politicizing the Holocaust after the Sunday news conference at the Holocaust Memorial Wall across from the United Nations, Mr. Schumer did not mention his lost relatives until yesterday.
And although he used the word ''slur'' to describe Mr. D'Amato's Yiddishism, and lumped that statement together with the Holocaust Memorial incident, there was no indication that Mr. D'Amato's derogatory remark was intended as an attack on Mr. Schumer's ethnicity.
Mr. D'Amato's use of Holocaust victims to attack a Jewish Congressman was certainly unusual, and even some of the Senator's supporters said he might have gone too far. At the D'Amato news conference, Mr. Schumer was criticized for missing two Congressional votes on Holocaust issues -- one dealing with efforts to recover deposits from Swiss banks and the other allowing use of the Capitol Rotunda for a commemoration (both bills passed overwhelmingly). The speakers also assailed Mr. Schumer for voting against a resolution to use force against Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf.
Schumer aides said they believed that Mr. D'Amato courted a backlash among Jewish voters unhappy at seeing the Holocaust injected into a campaign. It is also possible, though, that Mr. D'Amato only risks alienating progressive Jewish voters already supporting Mr. Schumer.
Mr. Schumer's silence on the subject since Sunday reflected division among his advisers over the risks of raising the issue, and some concern that focusing on the candidate's ethnicity might not serve him well among some upstate voters. As it is, the Republican Party has been running advertisements upstate that portray Democrats from New York City as sharks, and some Democrats and Jewish leaders have suggested that the ads were intended to play to ethnic tensions.
''For all the expressions of innocent intent by the ad's sponsors, there is no real denying that these sorts of references have a history to them and it is very sad that the ad continues to run,'' The Jewish Press said in an editorial last week.
Republicans have flatly denied that suggestion.
In his ''Dear Chuck'' letter yesterday, Mr. D'Amato, who is Roman Catholic, sought to blame Mr. Schumer for raising religious differences in the campaign. ''The first time was when our campaign called you a Brooklyn liberal, and you tried to twist that into religious code words,'' he wrote. ''It wasn't.''
In fact, Mr. Schumer, at repeated news conferences and interviews, declined to characterize the attacks that way. And Mr. D'Amato's campaign was unable to provide examples from Mr. Schumer to back up the Senator's assertion.
Nonetheless, Robert Bellafiore, the D'Amato campaign spokesman, said Mr. D'Amato stood by his charge that Mr. Schumer had deliberately misconstrued the ''Brooklyn liberal'' remark as anti-Jewish. ''They were definitely putting it out, and if they were not putting it out directly, it was getting put out with their consent,'' Mr. Bellafiore said.
Mr. D'Amato made the Yiddish reference to Mr. Schumer during a private breakfast meeting with about 40 Jewish supporters in Manhattan. According to participants, Mr. D'Amato was describing the difference in the two lawmakers' response upon learning of possible cuts in aid to New York.
Mr. D'Amato said he responded by introducing legislation to try to protect the city's interests. Using the Yiddish term to describe him, Mr. D'Amato said Mr. Schumer headed for a news conference instead.
Mr. Koch, the Democratic former Mayor, came to the Republican Senator's defense again yesterday.
''It's no big deal,'' Mr. Koch said. ''He's in a private meeting, which is off the record, with friends. And he's responding in part to the fact that Schumer has called him a liar.''
''That's impeccable Yiddish,'' Mr. Koch added. ''He's right on target.''
As for making fun of Mr. Nadler's weight, Mr. Koch said: ''It's true! Let me just say, I'm a friend of Jerry. And I worry about his weight. I think the Senator is conveying that he is worried, too.''

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