
 
 Protesters shout anti-Nazi chants after chasing alt-right blogger Jason Kessler from a news conference Aug. 13 in Charlottesville. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) 
 
 Each year of Barack Obama’s presidency, U.S. rabbis organized a conference call to speak with the president ahead of the Jewish High Holidays. 
 
 But this year, those rabbis will not participate in such a call with President Trump. 
 
 Citing his lack of leadership after the Charlottesville protests, rabbinical groups representing the Reform Jewish Movement, the Reconstructionist Movement and the Conservative Movement issued a joint statement Wednesday announcing their decision. 
 
 “The president’s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia,” they wrote. “Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels.” 
 
 The White House did not immediately return a request for comment. 
 
 Tuesday night at a rally in Phoenix, Trump reread his three statements pertaining to Charlottesville and maintained that he had adequately condemned hate groups. But many still believe that the president was not forceful enough and that he left room for white supremacists to interpret his remarks as supportive. Many have since distanced themselves from the president, including Republican lawmakers and charity organizations that normally hold functions at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. 
 
 Though anti-Semitism was on the rise during the 2016 presidential campaign and increasingly after, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said up until last week that they still intended to hold the call with Trump. 
 
 [On Rosh Hashanah, rabbis wrestle with whether to take on Donald Trump] 
 
 The calls began in President Barack Obama’s term as a way for the broader rabbinical community to hear supportive words from the president ahead of their most holy days. Each denomination then had a chance to ask him a question. Most years the first question would be about Israel, Pesner said, and in later years, questions arose around racial justice and the global refugee crisis. 
 
 Last year, in his final conference call as president with several-hundred U.S. rabbis, Obama said he would use this time to reflect on the previous eight years and the unfinished work still to do. It was the end of September, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was then leading widely in the polls. 
 
 “But a new year brings new hope, and the community represented on this phone call has always known what it means to stand up for the less fortunate, the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee,” Obama said. “And so I’m confident that we can stand together and make sure that as we pass the baton to the next administration that we’re going to be able to build on the enormous progress that we’ve already made.” 
 
 Such assuring messages are needed more than ever, Pesner said, “with Jews being so concerned about the rise of white supremacy and with this president who has given anti-Semites comfort and aid.” 
 
 The organization of Orthodox rabbis, the Rabbinical Council of America, did not sign the joint statement, and Pesner did not know whether they’ll still try to hold a call with Trump. 
 
 In an emailed statement, they would not say whether they would hold a call. An RCA spokesman said they “believe it is more effective to address questions and concerns directly with the White House” and instead pointed to their strongly worded rebuke of Trump’s Charlottesville remarks. 
 
 “Failure to unequivocally reject hatred and bias is a failing of moral leadership and fans the flames of intolerance and chauvinism,” the Orthodox rabbis wrote. “While as a rabbinical organization we prefer to address issues and not personalities, this situation rises above partisan politics and therefore we are taking the unusual approach to directly comment on the words of the president.” 
 
 Trump’s family, including daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and grandchildren, are Orthodox Jews. Their rabbi in New York City wrote a letter to his congregants in which he said he was “deeply troubled” by Trump’s comments after Charlottesville. 
 
 The Jewish High Holidays are a time of reflection and repentance. Pesner said it’s an opportunity for Jewish people to ponder whether they are doing enough to combat bigotry and hate. 
 
 He would not comment on whether Ivanka and Jared should reflect on that while observing the holidays, but said he prays that Trump does his own reflecting on it. 
 
 (This post has been updated.) 
 
 Read more: 
 
 ‘Jews will not replace us’: Why white supremacists go after Jews 
 
 After Charlottesville, will white pastors finally take racism seriously? 
 
 Can Donald Trump be anti-Semitic if his daughter is Jewish? ||||| A coalition of major rabbinical groups has said it will not hold an annual conference call with the president because of how Donald Trump responded to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. 
 
 Interested in Charlottesville? Add Charlottesville as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Charlottesville news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest 
 
 “We have concluded that President Trump’s statements during and after the tragic events in Charlottesville are so lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred that we cannot organize such a call this year,” the groups wrote in a letter released on Wednesday. 
 
 “The President's words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia,” the groups said. 
 
 The rabbinical groups -- which include the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism -- hold the call every year for presidents to discuss the Jewish high holidays. The holiest days on the Jewish calendar begin with Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 20 and continue through mid-October. 
 
 The call was held annually throughout the Obama administration and the coalition had planned to hold the call up until last week, according to The Washington Post. 
 
 The group's statement comes after Trump said both sides were to blame for the violence that occurred at white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville in mid-August -- which left one dead and 19 injured after a car-ramming attack. 
 
 “Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazi, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community,” the groups said in their statement Wednesday. 
 
 "We pray that President Trump will recognize and remedy the grave error he has made in abetting the voices of hatred," they added. ||||| “We respect the office of the presidency and believe it is more effective to address questions and concerns directly with the White House,” Rabbi Dratch said in an email. 
 
 Mr. Trump is an unpopular figure with most American Jews, but has retained a well of support among the most religiously observant denominations, in large part because of his views on Israel and Iran. Mr. Trump drew about a quarter of the Jewish vote in 2016, on par with most recent Republican presidential candidates but below Mitt Romney’s performance in 2012, when he captured 30 percent of Jewish voters. 
 
 The president’s daughter Ivanka is a convert to Judaism; she and her husband, Jared Kushner, have helped the White House mark Jewish holidays with statements and social media posts. 
 
 Mr. Trump has given no indication that he intends to walk back his remarks or apologize for them: After an initial statement on Charlottesville in which he faulted “many sides” for the violence, Mr. Trump gave a more tempered statement denouncing racism and anti-Semitism last week — only to follow up by reiterating his initial, hedged assessment of events at a news conference in New York City. 
 
 In that Manhattan event, Mr. Trump again drew an apparent moral equivalency between neo-Nazi marchers and anti-racist protesters, declaring that there were “fine people” on both sides, and this week he blamed the news media instead for stoking racial divisions. 
 
 Mr. Trump’s approach has alarmed leaders from minority groups and experts on political extremism, who have tracked a rise in hate incidents this year. In April, the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit showed that anti-Semitic incidents increased by more than one-third in 2016 and jumped 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same period last year. 
 
 That rise was most likely “driven by a relatively small but emboldened cadre of neo-Nazis and white supremacists,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. He said that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric risked aggravating those groups.
– A coalition of rabbis won't hold its annual presidential conference call this year, accusing President Trump of showing support for "those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia," ABC News reports. Per the Washington Post, the coalition—which includes the Rabbinical Assembly, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and others—canceled the conference call with a joint statement Wednesday over Trump's comments on Charlottesville, which the rabbis called "so lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred that we cannot organize such a call this year." The coalition states the "Nazis, alt-right, and white supremacists" in Charlottesville "must be roundly condemned at all levels." George W. Bush and Bill Clinton talked with rabbinical groups ahead of the Jewish high holidays, and a conference call with hundreds of rabbis was held every year during the Obama administration, the New York Times reports. The call was typically free of "raw politics" and a chance for rabbis to discuss the high holidays and ask the president questions. Rabbi Jonah Pesner says the rabbis would have liked the opportunity to hear encouraging words from the current president; instead, Trump "has given anti-Semites comfort and aid." The organizations that pulled out of the call represent 4,000 rabbis and congregations. The move suggests Trump may have a very hard time gaining support among American Jews.