Touro Synagogue, Colonial synagogue in Newport, United States
Touro Synagogue is a colonial house of worship located in Newport, Rhode Island, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Twelve Ionic columns support the upper balconies inside the building, with each column carved from a single tree trunk arranged to recall the tribes of ancient Israel.
Peter Harrison designed the building and the congregation dedicated it in 1763, making it the first Jewish house of worship on the North American mainland. Sephardic families who came to Newport from the Caribbean brought their religious customs with them and preserved those rituals inside this new space.
Each year the congregation reads aloud George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew congregation, which states that the government "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." The reading is held with invited speakers. The congregation also keeps the Spanish and Portuguese ritual, using the ArtScroll Nusach Sefard prayer book.
The congregation holds services every Saturday morning starting at 8:45, and visitors can join guided tours offered during the week. The building sits in downtown Newport and is easy to reach on foot or by public transit, with the entrance accessible to wheelchair users.
The central chandelier, a twelve-branch brass piece given by Jacob Pollock in 1789, carries four monkey heads on its central stem. Four others were donated by Naphtali Hart Myers in 1760, Aaron Lopez in 1770 and Abraham Rodriguez Mendez in 1765. The building faces east toward Jerusalem and sits at an acute angle to Touro Street.
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