Touro Synagogue

Jewish Community Center can be found at Touro St 85. The following is offered: Entertainment Venues. The entry is present with us since Sep 8, 2010 and was last updated on Nov 12, 2013. In Newport there are 1 other Entertainment Venues. An overview can be found here.

You must join a tour--given every half-hour--to see the inside of Touro.

There are no tours on Saturday or Jewish holidays.

In 1658, more than a dozen Jewish families whose ancestors had fled Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition founded a congregation in Newport. A century later, Peter Harrison designed a two-story Palladian house of worship for the congregation. George Washington wrote a famous letter to the congregation in which he pledged the new American nation "would give to bigotry no sanction, to...

This is the oldest existing synagogue in the United States, dating from 1763. A Sephardic Jewish community, largely refugees from Portugal, lived in Newport from the mid-17th century, over 100 years before this building was erected. It was designed by Peter Harrison, who was also responsible for the Brick Market. The synagogue was designated a National Historic Site in 1946.

In Short
With its Colonial American architecture, Touro Synagogue may seem an odd bastion of Jewish life on this side of the Atlantic. But situated on a quiet street and oriented to...