“Some on both sides of the discussion feel that way, and take a stance that is anti-Muslim or anti-terrorist, depending on your point of view,” said Nathan Katz, professor of religious studies at Florida International University in Miami.

Most Jewish groups, however, have tried to avoid a sectarian cast to their work with Indian-Americans. Instead, Jews said they were struck by the parallels between the issues that Jews and Indians had faced.

Image Rajiv Hora in a yoga class at the center, which promotes the variety of Indian culture. Credit... Heidi Schumann for The New York Times

“It echoes 30 years ago,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal center. “There is the same feeling of a growing community that says, ‘We want our voices to be represented, and how do we that?’ “

For years, many Indians who immigrated to the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s considered India their home. Now, most are rooted in the United States, as are their children, and they have moved with astonishing speed into politics, said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, where there is a large Indian-American constituency. Mr. Pallone is a founder of the Congressional Caucus on India. Representative Bobby Jindal, a Republican from Louisiana who is Indian-American, is running for governor of his state, and Indian-Americans hold or are vying for other local elected positions nationwide.

Indian-Americans have reached out to American Jews, in part, because of the growing friendship between India and Israel, whose chilly cold war relations began to thaw in the 1990s.

Indian and Israeli heads of state have recently visited each other’s countries. The countries have strengthened trade and intelligence ties. In February, the chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, met with Hindu leaders in India, after which the Jewish and Hindu clerics declared common beliefs, among them that their “respective traditions teach that there is one supreme being.” The statement was a breakthrough because many Jews had long considered Hinduism a form of idolatry, Professor Katz said.