Rabbi Shmuley Boteach says that American Jews are in shock over the number of anti-Semitic attacks going on in the United States.

“I think American Jews are in shock going back to Pittsburgh and Tree Of Life. We never thought that there would be a mass murder of Jews in the United States,” Rabbi Boteach, Chairman of the World Values Network, tells Israel National News at IAC National Summit in Florida. “That's something that happens in Europe. We don't expect that on American soil – Jews afraid to walk through Times Square wearing a yarmulke and being beaten up by roving mobs. This is something that you expect to happen in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Antwerp. You don't expect it in a city with more Jews in it than any city on earth – New York City has two and a half million Jews – and then organizations come out and say we'll fight anti-Semitism.”

Rabbi Boteach stresses that there is a lot more the Jewish community should be doing to proactively combat anti-Semitism.

“I wish the Jewish community learned from our African American brothers and sisters,” he says. “They don't tolerate racism and and bigotry anymore. They paid too heavy a price. If you make an anti-African American racist slur in the US, you're finished and that's the way it should be.”

He compares the reaction to the offensive tweet Roseanne Barr made about Valerie Jarrett, after which she lost her sitcom, to how Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant did not lead to the end of his career, and he even made “a movie saying that the Jews killed Jesus, not the Romans, and he's like in every movie. So there's clearly a double standard. So much can be done. Let's begin by fighting the double standard.”

Commenting that, contrary to popular wisdom at the moment, there are progressive Democrats who are supporters of the Jewish people and Israel, Rabbi Boteach mentions New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who spoke at the IAC Summit.

What concerns him at the moment is not the extreme left.

"The Squad, i think that they are marginalizing themselves. They do have a strong following, don't get me wrong, but they're not my primary concern. I think that they are seen as extremists – yes, AOC is probably the most mainstream among them. I hope that they will be consigned to the margins of American politics.”

He adds: “My bigger concern is our friends who are intimidated by the extremists. It's our friends who are centrists who are intimidated. We're seeing a lot of people, great friends of Israel in the Democratic Party… succumb to pressure from the extreme left and now they're afraid to say anything nice about Israel.”

It’s shocking that “being pro-Israel is an unpopular position in the Democratic Party,” he asserts. But he believes that support for Israel needs to be kept bipartisan.

“I don't want to see people believing that only the Republican Party is the pro-Israel party,” he says.