On the eve of Governor Romney’s visit to Jerusalem, Los Angeles Times issued a wonderful op-ed piece called “A Mormon in the Holy Land.” It was written by the scholar-activist Rafael Medoff, who relates the story of the visit to Jerusalem a century ago of a young Utah man, Elbert Thomas, and his wife, Edna. In the hills over Jerusalem, Mr. Medoff writes, Thomas read the lengthy “Prayer of Dedication on the Mount of Olives” written in 1841 by an early Mormon leader, Orson Hyde, whom Mr. Medoff calls a fervent Christian Zionist.

“Consecrate this land … for the gathering together of Judah’s scattered remnants … for the building up of Jerusalem again after it has been trodden down by the Gentiles so long. Restore the kingdom unto Israel, raise up Jerusalem as its capital…. Let that nation or people who shall take an active part in behalf of Abraham’s children, and in the raising of Jerusalem, find favor in Thy sight. Let not their enemies prevail against them … but let the glory of Israel overshadow them.”

Three decades later, Mr. Medoff writes, Thomas, by then a United States senator, grew so concerned about the plight of the Jews that he joined the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, which had been organized by Peter Bergson, emissary of the Zionist prophet Vladimir Jabotinsky. Thomas, writes Mr. Madoff, signed the Committee’s newspaper ads, co-chaired the conference on the rescue of Jews at which Bergson challenged the Roosevelt administration, and, although a loyal Democrat, broke ranks with FDR over the refugee issue.

We’ve been on this beat long enough to comprehend the cynicism that will greet any suggestion Governor Romney feels all — or any — of this deeply himself. But we don’t mind saying that we found it plenty affecting to see the Republican Party’s nominee-in-waiting at the Western Wall. He said the right things in respect of Iran. It was not a whole lot different than what a then-senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, said on his visit to Jerusalem in the thick of his winning campaign for the White House. Mr. Romney strikes us as less likely make the error that Mr. Obama did of holding out hopes of a negotiated solution.

We found ourselves more interested in what Mr. Romney had to say about Jerusalem, which we regard as one of the great tests of a president’s understanding and resolve. Mr. Obama, on the eve of his swing through Jerusalem in 2008, was tangled up in his own hemming and hawing after a relatively strong statement on Jerusalem at the Aipac conference in Washington. Mr. Romney’s reference over the weekend to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was characterized by the Associated Press, “matter-of-fact and in keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.”

Mr. Romney did not, according to the AP, say he would order the embassy moved if he wins the White House — as George W. Bush did say and failed to do. Messrs. Bush and Obama have refused to enforce even a law that would require the State Department to issue to an American born in Jerusalem a birth document saying he was born in Israel. Mr. Romney hedged his statement on the embassy in an intriguing way in a CNN interview. “My understanding is the policy of our nation has been a desire to move our embassy ultimately to the capital (Jerusalem),” the AP quoted him as saying, adding, “I would only want to do so and to select the timing in accordance with the government of Israel.”

The Democrats like to make much of the fact that what is called the Jewish vote invariably goes to them. On a net basis there’s little doubt it will do so again in this election. But it’s no small thing that the polls suggest it will do so by a sharply lower margin than it did four years ago. In the Middle East, President Obama’s heart seems to be elsewhere than Israel, while President George W. Bush, at the end of his presidency, delivered to the Knesset one of the best speeches ever given by an American leader, characterizing the declaration of the Jewish state as “the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David — a homeland for the chosen people: Eretz Yisrael.” It’s enough to make one wonder whether if Elbert Thomas were alive today he’d still be a Democrat.