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Newport, Rhode island is home to the oldest existing synagogue in the U.S. its founding made headlines in London newspapers at the time and it once hosted George Washington, who later wrote the Jewish community a letter affirming that freedom of worship would be a core principle in in the new United States. You're listening to Tall Stories, a Monocle production brought to you by the team behind the Urbanist. I'm Andrew Tuck. In this episode, Gregory Scruggs takes us to an historic place of worship built in the 18th century.
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Perched at the southern tip of Rhode Island, Newport is an ocean going city that has long looked to the world. Today, visitors come to ooh and ah at the seaside town's Gilded Age mansions. But it was during the colonial era that one particular building played a key role in establishing a bedrock American principle. The story begins in 1635 when the Puritans ruling the neighboring Massachusetts bay Colony banish A1 Roger Williams for his then radical beliefs about the separation of church and state, fair treatment of indigenous people and, and above all, religious freedom. So Williams starts his own colony just to the south based on those very ideals. And Rhode island quickly becomes a beacon of tolerance for religious minorities, from Quakers to Jews. The latter are particularly drawn to Newport after a tumultuous time securing a foothold in the New World. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition had expelled over 100,000 Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula, where they scattered to more welcoming countries like Holland and Britain. Portuguese speaking Jewish settlers were part of the Dutch colony in northeastern Brazil, founding the first synagogue in the Americas in Recife, only to find themselves on the run yet again when the Portuguese conquered the territory and brought the Inquisition with them. So in the late 1650s, Newport is a shelter from the storm. And a century later it's a thriving port city. But profiting from the triangular trade of sugarcane, molasses, rum, tobacco and cotton, all powered by enslaved labor. Of course, the Jewish community by this point is sufficiently settled that its leaders are ready to build a house of worship. For insights on how a fledgling community managed to afford the handsome Palladian style edifice, I turn to someone who knows the Toro Synagogue better than almost anyone. A lifelong congregant and and passionate student of the community's history.
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My name is Aaron Israel Ginsburg. I was born in Newport and raised here, and I've spent a lot of time in this building.
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Ginsburg, who in the classic tradition of Jewish comedians is prone to cracking a few jokes about his congregation's illustrious history, has dug into the archives.
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A worldwide fundraising campaign included four Letters to the first Jewish congregation in America, Sheareth Israel in New York. So after part of the building was built, they'd run out of money, so they sent a letter to Shereth Israel, and again and again and again. Shereth Israel always responded generously, which must be why they kept getting the letters. Sheareth Israel saves all of its correspondence. So in one of the letters from the congregation here, the point was made that we need your help so we will have someplace to educate our children. Support was also sought from Jewish communities in London, Amsterdam, and the Caribbean. Congregations from New York, London, Curacao, Jamaica and Suriname all contributed to help build the synagogue.
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Those Caribbean contributors are the other Dutch and British, safe havens for Jewish settlers in the New World. It's a remarkable network, connected across thousands of miles by a shared faith, and all by Shipborne correspondence. Finally, in 1763, on the second day of Hanukkah, the same holiday Jews around the world are celebrating this week, the Toro synagogue flings open its doors. An item in the Newport newspaper announcing the building's inauguration is then picked up by the London Chronicle. Ginsberg with the wisecrack.
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They must have been a good public relations person to get that on the front page of a newspaper.
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The fundraising campaign is pursued under the leadership of the building's namesake, Amsterdam born Rabbi Isaac Toronto, who arrives in Newport after a short stint in Jamaica. With a brick and mortar home, Newport quickly becomes a center for Jewish learning, a surprising outpost of ancient scripture on the edge of the New World. A rabbi from the Holy Land spends six months there in 1773, striking up a close relationship with a future Yale University president who makes Hebrew a required language at the Ivy League school. Here again, muses Ginsburg, it took him.
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20 years to realize that wasn't going to fly. Meanwhile, three valedictorians delivered their addresses in Hebrew. I suspect they were muttering something in English under their breasts, but nobody wrote that down.
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Much of the Jewish community flees. During the Revolutionary War, the British occupy Newport and use the synagogue as a military hospital. After the Continental army and French troops oust the British, General George Washington attends a town meeting in in the synagogue building in 1781. Although his wartime visit is brief, as the new nation's first president, he cements the Toro synagogue in the national mythology. When Rhode island ratifies the Constitution in 1790, he travels to Newport. Toro Synagogue warden Moses Sachas gives him a letter of congratulations that heralds the Constitution for guaranteeing his community's right to practice their faith. Sachius writes, deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free citizens. We now, with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty, dispenser of all events, behold a government erected by the majesty of the people, a government which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. Deeming everyone of whatever nation, tongue or language, equal parts of a great government machine. Washington writes three hundred and forty words in response a short letter now regarded as an early affirmation of the then radical idea of freedom of religion. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as. As if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.
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Tall Stories is a Monocle production from the team behind the Urbanist. This episode was written by Gregory Scruggs and produced and edited by David Stevens. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to receive new episodes every week. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye. Thank you for listening, City Lover.