Where is New York’s senior senator, the self-styled guardian of Israel and America’s highest Jewish official? We ask that question of Senator Chuck Schumer in respect of the candidacy of one Zohran Mamdani for the mayoralty of New York City. Early voting in that contest has already begun, and Mr. Schumer has yet to introduce an endorsement, or even its opposite. What an astonishing abdication. Call it “Waiting for Schumer.”

New York’s other elected Democrats have fallen in line between the democratic socialist, an assemblyman with a paper-thin resume. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has with gusto joined him on the hustings. Governor Kathy Hochul eventually endorsed Mr. Mamdani, and appeared with him at a rally on Sunday, though she was treated to a braying of boos. Mr. Mamdani credits a son of Brooklyn, Senator Bernie Sanders, as a formative influence.

On Sunday Mr. Mamdani said of Mr. Sanders: “I stand before you tonight only because the Senator dared to stand alone for so long … I speak the language of Democratic Socialism only because he spoke it first.” Less symbiotic but no less symbolic is the endorsement of Mr. Mamdani by the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, also of New York. Mr. Jeffries gave his belated approval for the socialist despite “areas of principled disagreement.”

The backing of Mr. Jeffries and Ms. Hochul makes them, to our mind, co-conspirators in whatever havoc Mr. Mamdani will unleash in the five boroughs and beyond. Ms. Hochul, too, cites “disagreements” with Mr. Mamdani, but evidently none so deep as to stop the upstate politico from backing him. They no doubt see in him a winning horse, and are eager to reap the rewards of the ride, no matter how odious his politics. 

All of this puts in ever-sharper relief the silence of Mr. Schumer, a man the Times calls the “Forrest Gump of New York politics, a character in every chapter of the city’s history since the 1970s.” The septuagenarian met with Mr. Mamdani in September, a sit-down the senator characterized as “good.” Not so good, though, is Mr. Schumer’s political standing. The Post reports his fundraising has dried up. His approval rating has withered.

We get that Mr. Schumer has his own re-election in 2028 to worry about. “Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” has a plausible ring, even as a stepping stone to an attempt on yet-higher office. Yet Mr. Schumer just released a book called “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” Here, in Mr. Mamdani, is a candidate for whom loathing of Israel and its supporters has been a constant. His politics is that about which Mr. Schumer seemingly would wish to warn.

A politician less in thrall to party — meaning a different one than Mr. Schumer — would take the opportunity of the race’s final days to lay out the danger Mr. Mamdani poses not only to New York’s Jews but to the entire city. His plan to “freeze the rent” is economically illiterate, and his scheme for free buses promises to transform the fleet into homeless shelters on wheels. His plans for policing promise to reverse the fragile gains Gotham has made.

Mr. Schumer, even before his quivering on Mr. Mamdani, has in recent years hardly proven himself to be the Jewish bulwark he claims to be. In March, when the going got tough in Israel’s war against Hamas, he stood in the Senate and called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. The democratically elected premier of the Jewish state, in Mr. Schumer’s telling, had “lost his way.” The same could more accurately be said about the now-silent Mr. Schumer.

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2028 is the year in which Mr. Schumer is up for re-election. The year was misstated in the bulldog edition.