Anti-Semitism and terrorism on rabbis' agenda with Pope

Israel’s two chief rabbis have met Pope Benedict XVI to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a landmark Vatican document on relations with Jews, seeking his support in fighting anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Israel needs the Vatican’s support at “this very dire hour” now that it has completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, said Ambassador Oded Ben-Hur.

Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, and the Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, called on the Pope at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome.

The meeting follows the historic visit by Benedict to the central synagogue in Cologne, Germany last month, the second time a Pope had entered a Jewish house of worship.

During the visit, Benedict decried the world was witnessing the rise of new forms of anti-Semitism.

The visit also follows a diplomatic tiff between the Vatican and Israel that erupted over the Pope’s omission of Israel in a list of countries hit by terrorism. It has been resolved.