Feb twelfth 2022
Newport, Rhode Island
TOURO SYNAGOGUE sits on a hill at an angle in order that its ark faces Jerusalem, as custom dictates. Stepping inside, one instantly senses its sacredness. But it’s not only a shrine for Jews. It can be, as President John F. Kennedy as soon as mentioned, “one of the oldest symbols of liberty”. Touro sits on the intersection of non secular freedom, American historical past (a trapdoor within the bimah, or podium, might have been a part of the Underground Railroad) and the historical past of Jews in America. For almost a decade the oldest synagogue within the nation has been on the centre of a dispute between its occupants, Congregation Jeshuat Israel (CJI), and its homeowners, Congregation Shearith Israel (CSI).
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Jewish retailers got here to Newport in round 1658 from Spain and Portugal, by means of the Caribbean and South America. They purchased land for a cemetery twenty years later. By 1763 the group was massive sufficient to open a synagogue. In 1790 George Washington famously promised Touro’s members that non secular “toleration” would give solution to non secular liberty.
By the 1820s most Jews had left Newport. Their scrolls and different sacred objects have been despatched to New York’s CSI for secure maintaining. But after the arrival of Jewish immigrants from jap Europe, the synagogue reopened in 1883. The new members leased the synagogue from CSI for $1 a yr and promised to keep up the constructing. The synagogue follows Sephardic traditions, because it did when it first opened, despite the fact that most members are Ashkenazi (with roots in Russia and jap Europe).
The congregations clashed over CJI’s deliberate sale of rimonim (ceremonial bells to crown the Torah scroll) made by Myer Myers, a colonial silversmith, to a Boston museum for $7.4m. CJI hoped to create an endowment to assist keep the constructing. But CSI claimed that promoting the artefact violated Jewish legislation in addition to the lease settlement. CJI went to courtroom searching for possession of the constructing and its historic contents, together with the bells. CSI then sued CJI, asserting it owned the synagogue and its artefacts. A federal courtroom first gave management to Newport’s CJI, however an appeals courtroom dominated in favour of the New York lot, saying non secular teams’ contracts have been enforceable identical to any property contract.
The congregations additionally feuded over a proposed burial within the long-closed Touro cemetery. John Loeb, a businessman and former ambassador, has been a beneficiant good friend to the Newport congregation, which agreed he may very well be buried within the cemetery (the topic of a Longfellow poem). Last yr a gravestone was erected in reminiscence of the nonetheless residing Mr Loeb. Louis Solomon, CSI’s president, says “the whole problem is that they haven’t been transparent”. Mediators have been unable to get the congregations to comply with a truce. CSI filed authorized proceedings to evict CJI from Touro. Mr Solomon wrote to the members on February third promising “no congregants are being evicted” and that the rabbi is welcome to remain.
Meir Soloveichik, CSI’s rabbi, sees his group as a steward of colonial Jewish artefacts. CSI desires to vary the board overseeing actions at Touro. Louise Ellen Teitz, co-president of the Newport congregation, calls this a “hostile takeover”. She desires safety for her small congregation within the type of a long-term lease. “This is the building and the place that we’ve worshipped for almost 140 years, which is longer than the original congregation.” ■
Correction (February tenth): A earlier model of this text mentioned that Congregation Shearith Israel sued Congregation Jeshuat Israel first. It is the opposite means round. Sorry.
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This article appeared within the United States part of the print version underneath the headline “Another exodus?”