New York, USA - When Pope Benedict XVI enters a U.S. synagogue for the first time, it will be an emotional encounter between a Holocaust survivor and the German pontiff _ bonding over their suffering in the same war.
"Both of us experienced the tragedy of World War II," said Arthur Schneier, senior rabbi of Manhattan's Park East Synagogue, which the pope is to visit on April 18, the nation's bishops announced Thursday.
The Vienna-born rabbi told The Associated Press in an interview at his office that he and the pope have the same mother tongue, German. "So we have a common language _ at least in terms of meine Muttersprache, my mother tongue," he said.
Schneier, 78, fled Adolf Hitler's forces in Austria for Budapest in 1939 with his mother and worked in a labor camp before Hungary was liberated by the Red Army. He said most of his family had been deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and died there. He moved to the U.S. in 1947.
The rabbi said sharing the war experience with the pope brings the two men closer.
"When you emerge from that kind of tragedy with all the human lives lost," he said, "it does something in terms of shaping your outlook and what you need to do to make sure that this becomes a better world and we don't repeat the mistakes of history."
The 80-year-old pontiff is a native of Bavaria whose father was anti-Nazi. He enrolled in the Hitler Youth against his will and was then drafted into the German army in the last months of the war. He wrote in his memoirs that he deserted in the war's last days.
Schneier said the pope's visit to the synagogue on the eve of Passover "is another tangible expression of his outreach to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel." He added that "the very clear message is that Jews and Catholics and Christians, we are in the same boat, we have common concerns for humanity."
It will be the first visit by a pope to a synagogue in the United States and Benedict's second as pontiff to a Jewish house of worship. On his first papal trip abroad in 2005, Benedict entered a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that had been destroyed by the Nazis and rebuilt.
Monsignor David Malloy, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the visit to the Park East Synagogue "personal and informal."
Schneier has met Benedict twice before, at the Vatican.
When the pope and his Vatican entourage arrive in the late afternoon at "my home" _ as the rabbi calls the synagogue _ they'll be welcomed in the main sanctuary by children of the Park East Day School and synagogue officials.
In what Schneier called "one significant, symbolic act," the rabbi and the pope are to sit side by side as greetings are exchanged and psalms are chanted in Hebrew.
Separately, the pope has scheduled a meeting with U.S. Jewish leaders, including Schneier, and representatives of other faiths for April 17 in Washington.
Park East Synagogue is a modern Orthodox congregation founded in 1888 and located a short walk from the United Nations, which Benedict will address earlier in the day.
Schneier has led the synagogue since 1962, while promoting religious tolerance worldwide _ including protecting persecuted Catholics _ as founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation. He received the 2001 U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal for service to the nation.
The pope has been reaching out to Jews, following the efforts of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who became the first pope to set foot in a synagogue in 1986, when he visited Rome's main synagogue.
"It's an evolving relationship," Schneier said of Catholics and Jews.
Some tensions arose recently over a Good Friday prayer Benedict revived from the old Latin rite that had historically been used as an excuse for violence and discrimination against Jews. Benedict revised the prayer to address Jewish fears, but some Jewish leaders worried that the changes did not go far enough.
Benedict is visiting the United States for the first time as pontiff from April 15-20, stopping in Washington and New York. He will meet with President Bush at the White House, address the presidents of Roman Catholic colleges and universities and hold Masses at Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium.