Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations of indifference towards the Nazis' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII. On a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
The pontiff responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.
It comes amid Jewish anger at Benedict's moves to beatify Pius.
The Pope conceded that "unfortunately, many remained indifferent", to the suffering of the Jews, six million of whom were killed in the Holocaust.
But he said "The Apostolic See [the Vatican] itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way," without mentioning Pius XII by name.
His remarks came directly after the president of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, told him "the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah [Holocaust], still hurts because something should have been done".
"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz," he said.
Some in the Jewish community, including at least one senior rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, boycotted the event.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says some Jewish leaders have called on the Vatican to open up its secret archives to study the record of Pius XII in closer detail.
That this issue is souring otherwise increasingly healthy relations between the two religions will frustrate many on both sides, but it is an issue that is unlikely to go away whilst Pius' path to sainthood is under consideration, our correspondent adds.
Two British nightclub waiters have been arrested after arson attacks on a historic Jewish synagogue on the Greek island of Crete which have drawn condemnation from around the world. The men, aged 23 and 33, are in custody alongside a 24-year-old Greek man after the restored medieval in the port city of Hania, one of the most noted Jewish temples in Greece, was twice set alight this month. The fires, which destroyed 2,500 rare books and manuscripts, sparked alarm among the 8,000 Jews in Greece. The US state department said the attacks were "clearly intended to intimidate and terrorise Greece's Jewish community". The arsons were the latest of several incidents of antisemitic vandalism across Greece, including attacks on synagogues and cemeteries in Larissa, Volos, Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Athens. During the first fire, on 5 January, a bottle with flammable liquid was found, according to witnesses. That fire was extinguished. But another, on 16 January, destroyed books and computers as well as causing considerable damage to art work and to the interior of the building, which is Crete's only synagogue. The 33-year-old Briton, who has not been named, is accused of being the perpetrator of that second attack but denies the charges. The Greek man and 23-year-old Briton are accused of keeping watch. Two US citizens are being sought in connection with the first attack, with the three detained also accused of involvement, said local police. 
The 15th-century synagogue was restored in 1999 after lying derelict since the Holocaust. By 1941 most of the Jews in Crete had emigrated, leaving only the Hania community of 269 people. They were deported by Nazi invaders in 1944 and died when their ship was bombed and sunk by the Allies. Now a cultural centre and museum as well as a house of worship, the building was renovated with help from the World Monuments Fund. As a derelict building it was seen by locals as "a monument to the success of the Nazis in obliterating 2300 years of Jewish life" but is now a "vibrant statement of Jewish life, vitality and values", according to its website. The men were reportedly arrested after the Greek co-accused confessed. Israel has called on Greece to better protect its Jewish heritage. Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, said: "We are worried, the Jewish community is worried." 
