After a tense call, Jewish umbrella group says it remains ‘distressed’ with Chuck Schumer’s call for elections in Israel

WASHINGTON (JTA) — An umbrella group for large Jewish organizations said it remained “distressed” after a call with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who sought to explain his bombshell speech last week calling for new elections in Israel and saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “lost his way.”

Schumer, the majority leader and most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history, asked for the call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations after a flurry of pushback from some Jewish groups. The backlash also came from…