WASHINGTON — The father of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, Abe Schumer, has died, the senator’s office announced Thursday. He was 98.
“Senator Schumer’s father Abe passed away this morning,” Dan Fagin, a spokesman for the New York senator, said in a statement. “Senator Schumer was with his family and wife at the time of his father’s passing. His father died peacefully, surrounded by family.”
Schumer was a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the United States and became a teacher. His father died Thursday, Fagin said.
Schumer, 75, was first elected to the Senate in 2009 and is the third-ranking Democrat.
Schumer was born in 1919 in Poland. He attended the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and received his law degree from Ohio State University in 1949.
He became the first Orthodox Jew to serve in the State Senate when he took office in 1972. His son, who had already been in office two years, became the first Jewish governor when he was elected in 2006.
Schumer was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008.