Qualla: Touro Synagogue

Touro Synagogue: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NateBergin, CC BY 4.0. George Washington's letter arrived in Newport in August 1790. Addressed to the Hebrew Congregation, it contained a phrase that would echo across centuries: the government of the United States "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." Washington was responding to Moses Seixas, warden of the Touro Synagogue, who had written to express the congregation's support for the new president. Every year, the congregation still reads Washington's letter aloud -- in the same building where Seixas first opened it, a building that has stood on the same Newport hilltop since 1763, the oldest surviving synagogue in the United States.

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Image: NateBergin | CC BY 4.0

Touro Synagogue: Refugees and Merchants

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:LionOfJudah80, Public domain. Fifteen Spanish and Portuguese Jewish families arrived in Newport in 1658, likely by way of Curacao and Suriname, where Sephardic communities had taken root in the Caribbean trade networks. They chose Newport deliberately. Roger Williams had founded Rhode Island as a haven for re...

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Image: User:LionOfJudah80 | Public domain

Touro Synagogue: Peter Harrison's Masterwork

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:(WT-shared) LtPowers, CC BY-SA 4.0. The synagogue was designed by Peter Harrison, a British-born architect considered one of colonial America's finest. Harrison had designed King's Chapel in Boston and Christ Church in Cambridge, but Touro is regarded as his most accomplished work. The interior is elegant and delib...

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Image: User:(WT-shared) LtPowers | CC BY-SA 4.0

Touro Synagogue: Abandoned and Reborn

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zellner55, CC BY-SA 4.0. The American Revolution scattered Newport's Jewish community. As British forces occupied the city, the congregation entrusted its Torah scrolls and building deed to Congregation Shearith Israel in New York for safekeeping. The keys to the building passed to the Goulds, a local Qu...

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Image: Zellner55 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Touro Synagogue: A Promise Kept

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Washington's 1790 letter to the congregation was not merely polite correspondence -- it was a declaration of principle at a time when such principles were far from guaranteed. Jewish communities in Europe still faced severe restrictions. Washington's words set a standard that the...

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Image: Public domain

Touro Synagogue: Whose Synagogue?

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0. In 2012, a legal battle erupted over who actually owns Touro Synagogue. Newport's Congregation Jeshuat Israel attempted to sell a pair of ceremonial silver bells, called rimonim, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for $7.4 million to fund restoration. New York's Congregation Sh...

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Image: ajay_suresh | CC BY 2.0