`Mobile rabbis' for European Jews?

VIENNA - The growing number of Jewish communities throughout Europe will require young rabbis to be increasingly mobile and to tend to more than one community at one time, based on statements made at a rabbinical conference in Vienna yesterday.

The changing structure of European Judaism means that rabbis from the Brussels-based Rabbinical Centre of Europe would be sent to Germany, Scandinavia, Russia and Ukraine to oversee 219 newly-established communities.

In addition, at the meeting attended by over 40 leading rabbis, including Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, participants agreed to restore 80 Torah scrolls that had been stolen by the Nazis and make them available to synagogues.

In a closing statement, the rabbis also applauded successful efforts by Germany and other countries to integrate Jews from eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Surprisingly, however, the conference did not openly discuss the threat of anti-Semitism.