In the run-up to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—where an assortment of white supremacists, anti-Semites, and fascists marched and chanted, “Jews will not replace us,” before plunging Charlottesville into a pit of deadly, hate-fueled violence—local Jewish activists desperately sought support from their community’s institutions. Ben Doernberg, a member of IfNotNow who was working in conjunction with Solidarity Cville, contacted area Jewish federations, synagogues, and Hillels to distribute information about counter-protests and alternative events on August 12. Doernberg wanted to recruit clergy around Charlottesville to join interfaith nonviolent actions—or, at the least, to facilitate housing and transportation for anyone who would stand against bigotry. He was stonewalled. Many places had already heard from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the most prominent Jewish monitor of anti-Semitism, which had advised that everyone stay away from the rally and leave things to the police.

Some feared giving the fascists the attention they wanted, or putting their community directly in harm’s way. Others wouldn’t advertise for an event taking place on a Saturday, Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. And few could have predicted just how bad the situation would get. Still, reflecting last week, Doernberg told me that “there are many Jewish activists that felt very abandoned. We had been saying, ‘Somebody help us, there’s Nazis coming to our town and people are going to get hurt.’ And almost no one helped us—and then people got hurt.”

Mimi Arbeit, an organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice Charlottesville, sought advice and resources from half a dozen national Jewish organizations. She had a few helpful phone conversations, and received offers of educational resources or training. When it came to showing up to confront protesters, however, no one was sufficiently prepared to offer support or to refer her to those who could. “We do not have a Jewish organizational home for the fight against fascism,” she told me. “We don’t have a confrontational strategy; we don’t have a community support strategy; we don’t have a coping strategy; we don’t have a Jewish organizational strategy. That’s what I’ve found.”

Despite the assumption that America’s Jewish community would be united in the face of rising anti-Semitism and white supremacy, Charlottesville and the ascendance of Donald Trump have accentuated the opposite: There is a deep divergence, over tactics, ideology, and more. And in reaction to what is seen as a tepid approach from the ADL and other mainstream Jewish organizations, grassroots Jewish groups have asserted themselves and new ones have emerged, mirroring the awakening of other combative activist groups on the left, from Black Lives Matter to the Democratic Socialists of America.

Before and since Charlottesville, many Jewish groups have avoided confrontation and kept quiet, apparently in the belief that calling too much attention to anti-Semitism will only result in more anti-Semitism, or that rising white supremacy simply won’t be a problem for Jews. Other Jewish institutions have cynically protected and enabled the forces that have mainstreamed the far right.