NEW YORK — During his first papal trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI will visit a synagogue led by a rabbi who survived the Holocaust, the nation's bishops said.

He makes a brief stop April 18 at Manhattan's Park East Synagogue, whose leader, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest and emigrated to the U.S. in 1947.

The pontiff, 80, is a native of Germany whose father was anti-Nazi. Benedict was enrolled in the Hitler Youth as a teenager against his will and then was 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. It will be the pope's second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his first papal trip abroad in 2005, he visited a synagogue in Germany that had been rebuilt after it was destroyed by Nazis.

"By this personal and informal visit, which is not part of his official program, His Holiness wishes to express his good will toward the local Jewish community as they prepare for Passover," said Monsignor David Malloy, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Passover begins at sundown on April 19.

Separately, the pope has scheduled a meeting with Jewish leaders and representatives of other faiths for April 17 in Washington.

Park East Synagogue is a modern Orthodox congregation founded in 1888, near the United Nations. Benedict will address the U.N. the next morning. Schneier, 78, has led the synagogue since 1962, promoting religious freedom and tolerance worldwide. He founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which promotes interfaith tolerance, and received the 2001 U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal for service to the nation.