The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents 1,500-plus traditional rabbis in American public policy, denounced “The Squad” for its “hateful rhetoric” against Jews and Israel, stressing that the “hateful bias shared both by The Squad and at ‘pro-Palestinian‘ demonstrations … now motivates violent attacks against Jews in American cities.”

The CJV also praised four Democrats in Congress who wrote to President Joe Biden on May 25 deploring the anti-Semitic comments by certain “Members of Congress,” remarks that “contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews.”

The Squad in Congress is comprised of six left-wing House representatives: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).

Both Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Omar have described Israel as “an apartheid state,” and Rep. Tlaib has used the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which means eradicate Israel and its Jewish population.

“Hateful rhetoric against Jews has increased since the ‘The Squad’—Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) first arrived in Congress in 2019,” said CJV Western Regional Vice President Rabbi Dov Fischer in a statement.

“What we see now is a Republican leadership anxious to condemn statements that lack sensitivity, while their Democratic counterparts are giving blatant hatred a pass,” said Rabbi Fischer.

The CJV also said that insensitive Holocaust analogies, such as comparing the yellow Star of David (used by the Nazis to label Jews) with vaccine passports, or similar analogies, are wrong, but do not share “the obvious bigotry of the remarks against Jews and Israel also documented in the letter” to President Biden.

“It is the hateful bias shared both by The Squad and at ‘pro-Palestinian‘ demonstrations, the rabbis observed, which now motivates violent attacks against Jews in American cities and creates the ‘climate… hostile to many Jews’ the letter decries,” said the CJV.

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of CJV’s Rabbinic Circle, said, “When a person claims that the world’s only country with Jewish and Arab government officials, members of legislature, and Supreme Court Justices is an ‘apartheid’ state, the hate and demonization are obvious.”

Gordimer also mentioned the letter to Biden, which was written by four Jewish members of Congress: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) , Elaine G. Luria (D-Va.), Kathy Manning (D-Mich.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).

“We understand that the writers, all Democrats, had to castigate Members on both sides for political reasons,” said Rabbi Gordimer. “Yet despite their doing so, these four Jewish Representatives were unable to get any fellow Democrats, or even one from outside the Jewish community, to join them. That silence carries a frightful message.”

“The Democratic party must do more, and do so immediately, to reverse the tide of antisemitic hatred now sweeping the country,” the rabbi added.

In their letter to Biden, the four Democratic Congress members said, “We also reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an ‘apartheid state’ and committing ‘acts of terrorism.’ These statements are anti-Semitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews.

“We must never forget that less than 80 years ago, within the lifetime of our parents and grandparents, six million people were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust because they were Jews. Israel has long provided the Jewish people with a homeland in which they can be safe after facing centuries of persecution.”