Boycott Schm-oycott! Trump Insists He Never Planned To Call Rabbis For High Holidays

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Image by Getty Images
Did liberal Jewish denominations succeed in making a brave statement against President Trump’s divisive leadership by effectively torpedoing an annual High Holidays conference call with rabbis?
Or did Trump hang up on them before they could hang up on him?
Less than 24 hours after Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis announced they would not organize the annual High Holiday presidential conference call, the White House made clear such a call was never in the cards anyway.
A Trump spokesman suggested that the call was a creation of former President Obama that had no future under Trump — even before the announced boycott.
“The Trump Administration looks forward to creating its own traditions to observe the High Holidays and other important days in the Jewish faith,” a White House official told the Forward.
The statement put an end to speculation about the annual pre-Rosh Hashanah call after groups representing the majority of Jewish rabbis in America announced they would not participate. Several sources in the Jewish community said they were not aware of any alternative plan or “new tradition” planned by the White House to address the community before or during the holidays.
The tradition of holding a rabbinical conference call began with Barack Obama and was initiated by liberal Jewish denominations. In the calls, held annually, Obama would give a presentation reflecting on issues relating to the community and would then take a few questions, one from each rabbinical group. While the calls rarely made big headlines, rabbis said they found the talks informative and helpful as they prepared to address their communities in High Holiday sermons.
On Wednesday, a joint statement by the three denominations said they would not hold the call because of President Trump’s response to the racially-inflamed events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“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 statement said.
Rabbis involved in the initiative told the Forward they had not reached out to the White House prior to making the decision.
Orthodox denominations did not join the move to pull out of the conference call in the first place.
The debate highlighted the rift between liberal Jewish denominations, which represent the majority of the American Jewish community, and the Trump White House. News of the planned boycott of the call was widely reported in national media outlets.
The end leaves all sides with strong talking points: Liberal Jewish denominations have made their opposition to Trump clear, and the White House can hold on to the claim that no damage was done, since there was no call to cancel. And the Orthodox can maintain that they are the one group that did not damage their access to the White House.
Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Ben Shapiro, Emily Damari among torch lighters for Israel’s Independence Day ceremony
-
Fast Forward Larry David’s ‘My Dinner with Adolf’ essay skewers Bill Maher’s meeting with Trump
-
Sports Israeli mom ‘made it easy’ for new NHL player to make history
-
Communications The Forward Announces Gifts of Domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org by Elie Hirschfeld and his wife Sarah Hirschfeld, MD
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.