Christians, Jews, and Muslims have a sacred connection to the city of Jerusalem, says author James Carroll, and “that sacred connection, even though at the present moment it’s a source of contention, is actually a profound source of union.”

“In that courtroom in Jerusalem 50 years ago, people heard the voices of those victims in a way that they hadn’t heard them before,” says Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University and the author of “The Eichmann Trial.”

The freedom Jews have experienced in America, says curator Josh Perelman, "also makes possible the ultimate choice, which is not to be Jewish."

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Sholom, an Orthodox synagogue in Washington, participated in an interfaith vigil at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and his congregation's Torah study was dedicated to the memory of the museum security officer who was shot to death.

"Criticism of Israel indicates engagement with Israel. American Jews should be worried when their children stop criticizing Israel," says Professor Steven Cohen, a sociologist of American Jewry on the faculty at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.

Read more of the Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly interviews with American Jews about Israel.