Warsaw hosts talks on European Jews

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Rabbis from many countries gathered to explore ways to promote Jewish life in central European communities devastated by the Holocaust and repressed under communism.

Some 25 rabbis convened in Warsaw's main synagogue May 21 for a two-day conference on issues ranging from reviving grass-roots Jewish leadership to practical matters of day-to-day life. "This conference is really about living Jewish problems," Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said. "How does one restart a Jewish community in a place where it was devastated?"

The rabbis at the conference, sponsored by the World Zionist Organization, came from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Western Europe and Israel.

Israel's ambassador to Poland, David Peleg, said he viewed the meeting as an important step in the ongoing struggle to strengthen Jewish life in Poland, "a unique country" that was home to more than 3 million Jews before the war, most of whom were murdered in Nazi death camps.

Today, the Jewish population is tiny and impossible to properly quantify because among those who survived the Holocaust and remained in Poland, many hid their religious identity to avoid the anti-Semitism and persecution rife during the following decades under communism.

Even 17 years since the transition to democracy, "some are still afraid because they don't know what the reaction will be from their immediate neighbors," Peleg told The Associated Press.

The conference comes as Poland's Jewish community faces new anxieties over a small right-wing party, the League of Polish Families, that entered a coalition government earlier this month. The League has its ideological roots in a prewar anti-Semitic party, and today has a youth wing whose members have been known to make Nazi gestures.