Mayor Bloomberg’s 36-hour whirlwind trip to Israel may end up helping him reap some political points with a key constituency – Jewish swing voters – political analysts said, because he was able to stand comfortably with leaders and dignitaries on the world stage.

“Bloomberg’s basic problem is that he is having trouble creating intensity among those who voted for him last time,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Among the Jewish community in New York, an occasion like the opening of a Holocaust Museum begins to do that.”

President Bush asked Mr. Bloomberg to lead an American delegation to Israel and represent the nation at the opening of a new Holocaust museum in Israel. While the mayor was the lowest ranking official to attend the inauguration of the museum at Yad Vashem, which has drawn the largest number of world leaders to Israel since the funeral for Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, he was able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with dignitaries and make a connection between the Holocaust, the new threat of terrorism, and New York.

Mr. Bloomberg, who spoke movingly this week about how his father might have reacted to seeing his son represent America in such august company, spoke briefly yesterday during a special session with the gathered dignitaries about the importance of the new museum. Mr. Bloomberg emphasized the museum’s use of first-hand recounts of the Holocaust to tell the story of what took place.

“Without the testimony of survivors, it will be easier for the deniers and the revisionists to spread their horrible lies,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday. “We cannot allow this to happen.”

The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, agreed, telling the assembly yesterday that the new museum and memorial was a place of “deep shame” for his country. The Holocaust museum “is a place of deep shame for any German because the name of my country, Germany, is and will forever be inseparably linked to the Shoah, the ultimate crime against humanity,” he said. “The Shoah … will forever remain an indelible part of German history,” he added, using the Hebrew name for the Holocaust.

Though Mr. Bloomberg had to sit through more than four years of remarks by the other officials before it was his turn to speak (protocol dictated that he be the last to speak because he was the lowest ranking official in attendance), just standing on the stage with world leaders and holding his own among the dignitaries will likely provide some political capital for the mayor when he returns to New York, analysts said.

“Mayors go to visit Israel because it helps,” said the president of the Advance Group, a political consultancy, Scott Levensen. “The mayor has a specific appeal to make to Orthodox Jewish voters who are arguably a swing vote in the election. Bacon-and-eggs Jews of Brooklyn, who aren’t necessarily high-holiday Jews, but identify culturally as Jews, are also an important electorate that he needs to hold. It is essential that he get them on his side to get elected and I think he went a long way toward doing that with this trip.”

Former mayoral candidate Ruth Messenger was less sure. “People want to hear about education and housing, not Holocaust Museums,” she told The New York Sun yesterday. “The opening of the museum was important and going was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. Do I think it plays for the campaign? No. This is not the basis on which people choose their mayor. Does this hurt him? Of course not.”