“One,” says Chaim Topol, playing an equally sour Jew. “One God.”

Cue Muhammad and the Muslims, and in a flash Jerusalem is home to three monotheistic religions. Islam is dispatched almost as quickly as it arrives. After a nod to the Dome of the Rock, the religion is hardly mentioned again. The elevator then speeds past several centuries—the Ottoman Empire is a 400-year footnote—and suddenly it is the late nineteenth century and Jews are returning en masse. A triumphant soundtrack accompanies the War of Independence and the Six-Day War. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian cause are not mentioned at all. “Three thousand years sounds like a long time,” Shalem says wisely. “And yet, we’ve only just begun.” The room erupts with applause.

As the lights come on, the Christians hurry out of their seats. The buses, and a driving tour of Israel’s parliament buildings, await. “I loved it,” says Dr. John Reynolds, a Baptist pastor from Florida. “I’d like to start my tour of Jerusalem here.” Many others are just as effusive, though Pastor Bruce Watt of Peoria, Illinois, takes issue with some of the facts. “The Babylonian captivity lasted for fifty years?” Watt says, shaking his head in dismay. “It should have been seventy years, according to the Book of Jeremiah. Everybody knows that.”