Pope Francis makes first visit to synagogue

Pope Francis made his first visit to a synagogue as Pope yesterday, greeting Rome’s Jewish community in their house of worship in a show of inter-faith friendship.

Francis joined a standing ovation when Holocaust survivors wearing striped scarves reminiscent of their camp uniforms were singled out for attention at the start of the ceremony.

He began his visit by laying a wreath at a plaque outside the synagogue marking where Roman Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in 1943 and at another marking the slaying of a two-year-old boy in 1982 in an attack by Palestinians on the place of worship.