Touro Synagogue National Historic Site

The Touro Synagogue was barely 25 years old when George Washington offered a vision of religious tolerance in a letter he sent its congregants. The new American government, the president wrote in the most famous passage of the 1790 letter, "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." A copy of the letter is the highlight of a new $12 million visitors center that opened Sunday next to the Touro Synagogue, the oldest existing Jewish house of worship in the United States. The visitors center details the history of the synagogue, which was dedicated in 1763, but has a broader focus on colonial ... Read Full Story

While Boston is one of my favourite cities in the US, I decided to explore a little further afield on my trip there last weekend. It was great to have a ‘free day’ down route. I decided to visit Providence, Rhode Island. Rhode Island is the smallest state in the US and one state that I have not visited. In my bid to visit all 50 states, I thought I would cross another off my list. After doing a little research as to what the state and its capital had to offer, I would say I become mildly obsessed. Maybe intrigued might be a ... Read Full Story

A new visitors center is opening at the oldest surviving synagogue in the United States. Rhode Island's Touro Synagogue was dedicated in 1763 and maintains an active Orthodox Jewish congregation. The synagogue on Sunday will open a $12 million visitors center focusing on the history of the building and on colonial Jewish history and culture. The center's timeline starts in 1658, when 15 families of Sephardic Jews traveled to the bustling waterfront hub Newport. More than 100 years later, Rabbi Isaac Touro arrived from Amsterdam and became the congregation's first spiritual leader. A highlight of the new visitors center is a 1790 letter from ... Read Full Story

I love where I live. I live here . . . on Aquidneck Island, situated in Narragansett Bay, which is pictured below in the background with the Newport Bridge. This is a small seaside town on the Atlantic Ocean. In the very small state of Rhode Island, USA. I wasn't born here, but I moved here my second year of teaching in 1973. I love Al Green, http://youtube.com/watch?v=43L5LauVUaQ Al Green ~ Let's Stay Together http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Tgm7v284JI AL GREEN ~ Take Me To The River so I decided to go to the Newport Jazz Festival this past summer. Parked my car and took the water ferry ... Read Full Story

(IsraelNN.com) The oldest synagogue in the U.S. opened a visitors center Sunday. The Newport, Rhode Island $12 million center opened next door to the historic synagogue. The Touro Synagogue was built in 1759 and dedicated in 1763 by Congregation Jeshuat Israel, which was first established in 1658. Former Ambassador John L. Loeb, financier of the visitors center, told the Providence Journal that although he was raised in an assimilated Jewish home, his classmates reminded him that he was Jewish. As Loeb’s classmates viewed newsreels of reports of Nazi atrocities in Germany, they taunted him, “We don’t like Hitler, but at least he killed the ... Read Full Story