Benedict's attempts to ease tensions with Jews after his recent decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop appeared to achieve only partial success. The top two officials at Israel's Holocaust memorial faulted the pope for not apologizing nor using the words "murder" or "Nazis" during a speech at the site.
Nor did the pope make any discernible progress in resolving long-standing differences between the Vatican and Israel over whether the wartime pontiff, Pius XII, did enough to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Still, the pope has seldom been as emotional as he was yesterday when he laid a wreath and rekindled the "eternal flame" at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
His voice and hands quivering, the 82-year-old pontiff spoke eloquently of those who perished.
"I can only imagine the joyful expectation of their parents as they anxiously awaited the birth of their children. What name shall we give this child? What is to become of him or her? Who could have imagined that they would be condemned to such a deplorable fate.
"As we stand here in silence, their cry still echoes in our hearts," he said.
Benedict received an extraordinarily warm welcome replete with red carpets, a choir, children waving flags and red carnations, and a new strain of wheat named after Benedict that was presented to him by Israel's Nobel peace-prize winning president, Shimon Peres.
"In you we see a promoter of peace, a great spiritual leader," said Peres, who also gave Benedict a 300,000-word Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible inscribed on a tiny silicon particle, using nanotechnology.
"I don't think you have one of these at the Vatican," Peres quipped. *
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