Touro Synagogue, Newport, RI
I was poking around the Library of Congress website today, and chanced across their Today in History page, which noted that:
On December 2, 1763, members of the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island witnessed the dedication of the Touro Synagogue, the first synagogue in what became the United States. Designed in the Georgian style by English architect Peter Harrison, the synagogue was named for Isaac Touro, its first officiating rabbi.
Organized Jewish community life in Newport dates to 1658, when fifteen families emigrated and established a congregation in the growing seaport. Newport was the second oldest Jewish congregation in the future U.S. and the first organized in a British colony. For more than one hundred years the community relied on correspondence with rabbis in Europe to sustain its religious traditions in the New World.
Newport developed into a thriving commercial center. The Jewish community included a sizeable number of merchants active in the sea trade, and early maps of Newport show Bellevue Avenue lined with shops owned by Jewish merchants of Spanish and Portuguese descent. On August 17, 1790, the Hebrew congregation of Newport welcomed George Washington to their city.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Newport’s temperate climate and scenic location made it a favorite vacation spot for the rich. Newport is filled with “cottages” like Belcourt Castle and The Breakers. Designed by architects like Richard Morris Hunt and landscaped by professionals including Frederick Law Olmsted these mansions provided imposing settings for wealthy Americans like Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The page also links to several other resources on the Library of Congress site that are interesting:
- “See the online exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic for information concerning Jewish communities in early America.”
- “View additional photographs of historic synagogues. Search the American Memory pictorial collections on synagogue.” If you search for “baltimore synagogue” you’ll see some old pictures of the Lloyd Street Synagogue.
There’s also a link to Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate Soldier, a journal of a Southern Jew who fought for the confederates in the Civil War.  The insight into the life of a Civil War solider is fascinating, here’s an interesting group of entries:
September 23 – Day of Atonement to-day. Nothing more up to the 26th.
September 26 – We have built ourselves cabins in our camps. This evening we went on picket.
September 27 – The Yankees are very active today. Something is up.
September 28 – Our regiment is on picket; will be relieved to-morrow.
September 29 – All quiet to-day. Brother Morris returned from Richmond yesterday, where he has been for ten days on a furlough. Before our Jewish New Year there was an order read out from General Lee granting a furlough to each Israelite to go to Richmond for the holidays if he so desired. I did not care to go.
September 30 – We are shooting at the Yankees to-day for fun, as they are trying to steal sheep from the houses that are between our lines.
