Washington – Three streams of American Judaism will not participate in the traditional annual pre-High Holidays call with the president, saying Donald Trump has “given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia.”
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“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,” said a statement Wednesday by leaders of the Reconstructionist, Reform and Conservative movements, which went on to the “succor” comment.
The reference was to Trump’s equivocation following the clash between white supremacists and counterprotesters on Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia. An alleged white supremacist later rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer.
Trump at first said there was violence on “both sides” and for two days did not single out the white supremacists for censure. A day after he did so, the president said there were “very fine people” among the far-right protesters and the counterprotesters.
“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,” the statement said. “Our tradition teaches us that humanity is fallible yet also capable of change. We pray that President Trump will recognize and remedy the grave error he has made in abetting the voices of hatred.”
It’s not clear whether there would be a separate call for Orthodox rabbis, who have participated in the annual calls, which were routine with President Barack Obama. Officials at Orthodox rabbinical groups said no separate call was in the works.
Similar briefings occurred with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, but not necessarily formalized as a pre-High Holidays call. With Bush, for instance, there often was an in-person meeting on the day of the White House Hanukkah party, a tradition launched by Bush.
should be highly commended for their moral stance
Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side
That’s a distortion of facts and not true. The other side was armed and without permits. How can you say the responsibility lies with one side. Its a lie.
And yes the president agrees that morally neo nazis are worse. Although groups like antifa that are OK with violence against police officers are pretty bad too. But yes nazis are worse. However, that does not negate what happened in Charlotsvile.
Personally, I feel its time we rethink about who we give a right to protest. Neo nazis and other hate groups should not have those rights. And that should be the discussion on the aftermath. However, what physically happened was two sided
I’d love to join in on this Rabbi call and would be honored to hear from the president. So sad that liberal jews distort judiasm and facts.
I remember a photograph published here on VIN shortly after Trump became President, when he traveled to Europe for some summit, and none of the other leaders wanted to be seen next to him. Then there was the other photo of him sitting alone while all the leaders were talking with each other. Then there was the one of the leaders all either visibly smirking or covering their faces with their hands as he was speaking. At some point in the future distant enough for us to be able to look back at all this and laugh somebody is going to put together a very large photo album.
Every once in a while it can be good to look at things from a fresh perspective, right? For anyone out there who minimizes what the alt-right are all about, I was just guided to glance at one of their websites, called jewworldorder dot org. Because “there were some very fine people marching there”.
They were smirking when he told the NATO members to pay their fair share, which is 2% of GNP.
So the fake jews believe the fake news
These organizations (Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative) have 90% of there members not Jewish, so whom are they representing ?. Not Jews but themselves…