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. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201702/3752/1155968404_5331177498001_5331149930001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump finally confronts anti-Semitism head-on 'The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful,' the president says. 
 
 For the first time in a week, President Donald Trump on Tuesday unequivocally condemned anti-Semitism, following in his daughter’s footsteps after twice last week refusing to explicitly denounce discrimination against Jews. 
 
 “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” the president said, reading brief remarks after concluding a tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. 
 
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 “This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms,” he said. 
 
 Trump spent roughly an hour walking through the museum with his daughter Ivanka Trump; Housing and Urban Development secretary nominee Ben Carson and his wife, Candy; Fox News contributor Alveda King, niece of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). 
 
 The president told reporters he plans to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “I will be doing it soon,” he said, when asked about a potential trip. “Very important. Very important for me.” 
 
 Trump’s attempt Tuesday to calm the waters came after the president and his White House alarmed many in the Jewish community and anti-discrimination groups. His long-awaited remarks came weeks after he omitted a reference to the slaughter of 6 million Jews from a Holocaust remembrance statement and days after he declined to directly condemn anti-Semitism when confronted by reporters at news conferences on back-to-back days. 
 
 But it didn’t appease some Democrats. “It’s not hard to see a connection between the rhetoric used by the white nationalists given a platform by President Donald Trump’s campaign and the increase in threats against the Jewish people,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “President Trump’s statement is long overdue and doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what needs to be done.” 
 
 Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, based in New York, also said Trump’s efforts were too little and too late. “The President’s sudden acknowledgment of Anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Anti-Semitism that has infected his own Administration,” Goldstein said in a statement. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Trump throughout the campaign battled allegations of anti-Semitic influences on his operation, including from campaign chairman Steve Bannon, who had run the conservative news outlet Breitbart. He also failed to quickly disavow the endorsement of white supremacist David Duke, and many of his supporters pushed anti-Semitic imagery, including Pepe the Frog, a popular internet meme among white nationalists. 
 
 Trump’s condemnation on Tuesday came hours after former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called on him to speak out against anti-Semitic violence. 
 
 “JCC threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped. Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS,” Clinton tweeted Tuesday morning. 
 
 Her post followed a call from the Anti-Defamation League for the Trump administration to take action in response to a wave of reported threats against Jewish community centers (often referred to as JCCs) around the country. At least 10 such centers have received bomb threats in recent days, the fourth wave of threats against JCCs the ADL has identified this year. 
 
 On Monday night, Ivanka Trump, who converted to Orthodox Judaism ahead of her 2009 wedding, tweeted: “America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC” 
 
 Ahead of his brief address, the president had told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin that “anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s gonna stop and it has to stop.” He added that the racial divide in America is “age-old” and speculated that “something” is going on that prevents the country from fully healing. 
 
 “Sometimes it gets better and then it busts apart. But we wanna have it get very much better, get unified and stay together,” Trump said. “But you’ve seen it where oftentimes it’ll get much better and then it blows up.” 
 
 He credited the new African-American history museum for helping bridge that divide, though. 
 
 “Part of the beauty of what you’re doing here with the museum and the success of the museum — the success is very important because it’s doing tremendous numbers. Tremendous numbers of people coming in,” he said. “I think that really helps to get that divide and bring it much closer together. If not, perfect.” 
 
 Trump was joined in his denouncement of anti-Semitism by House Speaker Paul Ryan. “Anti-Semitism in any form is abhorrent, and I encourage authorities nationwide to take these threats seriously,” he tweeted on Tuesday. 
 
 Trump’s rhetoric Tuesday was a stark contrast to his passive language last week. Trump failed to take advantage of his first opportunity last Wednesday, when a reporter asked about the rise of anti-Semitic incidents across the country. 
 
 Standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump immediately discussed his Electoral College victory before pledging his administration will do all it can to “stop long-simmering racism and every other thing that’s going on.” He also hinted that he personally can’t be anti-Semitic, pointing to his Jewish family members: Ivanka; her husband, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner; and their three children. 
 
 At a news conference Thursday, Trump again caused agitation. In search of a “friendly reporter,” the president called on Jake Turx of the weekly Orthodox Jewish publication Ami Magazine, who prefaced his question by noting that he did not believe Trump to be an anti-Semite before launching into a query about bomb threats against JCCs. 
 
 Complaining that he wasn’t asked a “simple” or “fair question,” Trump ordered the reporter to “sit down” and insisted he understood the remainder of the incomplete question. The president then declared himself to be “the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life” and added that he’s also “the least racist person.” 
 
 He also recalled Netanyahu’s defense of him at the prior day’s news conference, where the prime minister argued that “there is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than” Trump. 
 
 In neither instance, however, did Trump condemn anti-Semitic acts of violence, instead opting to defend himself against possible charges of being an anti-Semite or racist. 
 
 On Tuesday, asked explicitly by MSNBC’s Melvin whether he would denounce anti-Semitism “once and for all,” Trump said yes — and claimed he’s been doing it all along. 
 
 “Oh, of course,” he said. “And I do it — wherever I get a chance, I do it.”
– 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.