Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders haven't pulled their punches as the Democratic race for the White House veers toward the opening Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3, but Bloomberg this weekend deployed a different line of attack.

"Now, I know I'm not the only Jewish candidate running for president. But I am the only one who doesn't want to turn America into a kibbutz," the former three-term New York City mayor said Sunday in Miami, Florida.

While Bloomberg, 77, did not mention the Vermont senator, 78, by name, there was no mistaking the reference to the socialist during remarks to potential Jewish Democratic primary voters. Sanders volunteered on an Israeli kibbutz, a communal farm, in the 1960s.

Bloomberg and Sanders are the only two 2020 Democratic presidential candidates vying to become the first commander in chief to be raised Jewish. Tom Steyer and Michael Bennet both have a Jewish parent but weren't brought up practicing the religion.

Sanders has not been shy about voicing criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government, which became a close ally of the Trump administration.

In 2016, he had to walk back claims he made during his New York Daily News editorial board meeting, when he said that Israel killed “over 10,000” Palestinians in the 2014 Gaza War. His campaign contended that his comments had been "distorted" because he confused the number of deaths with the number of causalities, and the outlet did not include his acknowledgment of the mistake in its transcript of the interview.

This election cycle, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sanders stated he is open to conditioning aid to Israel on the cessation of settlement construction in the West Bank, angering some American Jews.

Although Sanders says he is not overtly religious, he often brings up his immigrant background on the campaign trail, retelling how his Polish-born father came to the United States in 1921 to escape persecution and seeking a better life.

“What makes this country great is our diversity and our willingness to work and live together, regardless of the color of our skin or our religion or where we come from,” he said in December during a menorah lighting ceremony in Iowa after five Orthodox Jews were stabbed at a rabbi’s home in New York over Hanukkah.

Center-left Bloomberg, a former Republican and independent who is focused on wooing voters in the 14 "Super Tuesday" March 3 states, has been critical of liberal firebrands Sanders and Warren, particularly concerning their tax plans, which target the ultrawealthy like him.

Sanders has been more bellicose toward the billionaire mogul and philanthropist for spending more than $250 million on ads since announcing his White House bid last November.

“You see, when you're worth $50 billion, I guess you don't have to have town meetings. You don't have to talk to ordinary people,” Sanders told ABC at the time. “What you do is you take out, I guess a couple of billion dollars, and you buy the state of California."