USA: Wall Paintings at Sons of Jacob in Providence, Rhode Island

 Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Exterior. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

 Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Painted curtain, sky, lions and Decalogue over the Ark. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Elul / Betulah (Virgo).Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

USA: Wall Paintings at Congregation Sons of Jacob in Providence, Rhode Island
by Samuel D. Gruber 

Ever since I got involved with the rescue and restoration of Lost Shul Mural in Burlington, Vermont several years ago I've had my antennae up for other unknown or too-little known examples of American synagogue wall painting. I recently wrote about the Walnut Street Shul in Chelsea, Massachusetts as an excellent and well-preserved example of an early 20th-century painted American immigrant synagogue. I documented the wall paintings there as part of an ongoing project of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments to identify and record the decoration of American synagogues.

A remarkable comparable example is the Congregation Sons of Jacob in Providence, Rhode Island, also listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which shares architectural and artistic elements with the Chelsea Shul, including well preserved wall paintings on the Ark wall and ceiling. The Providence synagogue is now part of the Rhode Island Jewish Museum, a new effort founded in 2016 to tell the Jewish immigrant story of Rhode Island. Presently, the Museum is more concept and website than actuality, but the organizers have ambitious plans to restore the synagogue as a centerpiece. While there  have been some events at the synagogue connected to the Museum, at present there are no exhibitions or other forms of information available beyond what is online. I was very fortunate to have Harold Silverman, president of the congregation, give me a top to bottom tour of the building. It is due to the efforts of Mr. Silverman and a few others that the place still stands and the lights still shine. Much work is needed to preserve the synagogue for the future, but the small congregation has steadfastly kept the building - and its Jewish use and identity -  intact (I'll report more on the progress of the museum in future posts).

Founded in 1896 on Shawmut Street and now located on Douglas Avenue, Sons of Jacob is the oldest Orthodox Jewish congregation in Providence, and the only synagogue still in use in the historic Smith Hill neighborhood. The ground floor was built in 1906 and the sanctuary was designed in 1922 by Harry Marshak. From 1923 through 1936 Congregation president Sam Shore oversaw the decoration of the sanctuary, apparently painting some of the work himself, such as the Zodiac signs which surround the large central field of the ceiling – a open cloud-streaked sky. A history of the congregation can be read here.

These Orthodox shuls in Chelsea and Providence just barely survived the widespread demolition of Jewish neighborhoods for the construction of highways in the 1960s and 1970s. Both buildings officially house active congregations. But these are tiny groups and each must struggle to maintain a minyan for services and to fund the ever-mounting expenses of maintaining a large old building. Champions of these synagogues are looking at ways to preserve them for another century, in not as active synagogues, then at least as museums or historical sites following the model of New York City's Eldridge Street Synagogue and a few other successful examples. Ideally religious services will continue alongside other activities, but how this can happen and who will fund the restoration and maintenance of the buildings remains to be seen.

Chelsea, MA. Walnut Street Shul. Aerial view showing proximity to I-95. Photo:Google.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Aerial view showing proximity to I-95. Photo:Google.

Congregation Sons of Jacob in Providence is a two-story brick structure that now sits precariously close to the Interstate 95 (I-95) highway that slices through the city. It now faces I-95, and significantly for an Orthodox Synagogue (but not unusual in American cities) the Ark is placed against the west wall. The outside of the synagogue is dignified, and shows its stained glass windows along its northern flank on Douglas Avenue. But it is the inside the really counts.

The ground floor Beth Midrash and other facilities are well preserved, and this is where most daily and weekly worship takes place. I hope that whatever necessary repairs and changes are made in the future, that this space remains little changed. It is a now-rare example of the combination of religious and social space of the immigrant shul, that allowed these institutions to serve as places of worship, but also as places of social gathering for Yiddish-speaking immigrants still adapting to the pressures and uncertainties of the New World. There may be a temptation to modernize this space, or to clear parts of it entirely to for exhibition or events...but any changes should be careful and modest.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ground floor Beit Midrash. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The most striking feature of the sanctuary is its many murals. Above the ark is a mural depicting two lions supporting a tablet bearing the Commandments. The painting is framed by a wooden arch made to look like marble, beyond which and surmounting the ark is painted to resemble blue sky framed by red curtains tied with gold cord to columns at the sides.Such curtains are common elements in painted synagogues in Europe and America and recall of the Parochet of the Jerusalem Temple, but also serve as theatrical curtains often opening to reveal celestial or paradisaical landscapes.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. View to Ark wall. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

There are four paintings of animals above the windows of the upper part of the Ark wall; depicted are the deer, the lion, the eagle, and the tiger. These animals refer, of course, to the passage in the Pirkei Avot / Wisdom of the Fathers  (5:23):

Judah ben Teima used to say: Be strong as the leopard, swift as the eagle, fleet as the gazelle, and brave as the lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven. He also used to say: The impudent are for Gehenna and the affable for Paradise. (He used to pray): May it be thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days, and grant our portion in your Torah.

 Each of the animals is shown in an active pose set in an appropriate landscape setting.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Tiger ("Be strong as a leopard"). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Deer ("fleet as the gazelle"). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Lion ("brave as a lion"). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Eagle ("swift as an eagle").Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

More expressive as art are two landscape paintings that flank the Ark near its base, just above some enclosed boxes that carry electrical equipment. These are paradisaical landscapes, or might represent the Holy Land, in which case the lakes might be the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. These are no polished works, but seem to be more than mere copies of known works or photos. The loose brushwork suggests that the painter thought of himself as an artist, more than a mere copiest. Unfortunately, we still know nothing about the process of choosing and making these images. There are some landscapes paintings on the sides of an Ark in the Beth Midrash downstairs which recall the ark paintings, but these are done in a finer hand, perhaps the same artist who painted the clouded skies on the Ark wall and ceiling.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. See landscapes immediately beneath the memorial plaques..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Landscapesflanking Ark immediately beneath the memorial plaques..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Landscape flanking Ark immediately beneath the memorial plaques..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Landscape flanking Ark immediately beneath the memorial plaques and electrical equipment..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ark wall. Ground floor Beit Midrash. Landscape flanking Ark ..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Looking up again, there is a painted border around the central ceiling section with twelve images set in cartouche-like frames representing the months of the year embellished with the signs of the zodiac. Within the continuous border, the ceiling is covered with painted clouds. Several examples of trompe-l'oeil painting are evident throughout the large room.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Ceiling, sanctuary and women's gallery seen from near the Ark. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The area from which the chandelier hangs is painted to approximate an elaborate medallion, similar to what we saw at the Walnut Street Shul in Chelsea, but also a common element in ceiling painting in theaters, ballrooms and all sorts of elaborate interiors of this period. The fronts of the women's gallery are painted to suggest inlaid marble panels, while the posts supporting the gallery are painted to resemble marble columns

Sam Shore, congregation president from 1923 to 1936, who was "artistically inclined," supervised the painting of the sanctuary and is said to have painted the mazoles (symbols of the twelve Jewish months) himself. No one now remembers who painted the rest of the murals.It is worth noting that unlike at some other American Orthodox shuls, only the traditional figure if the water carrier designating Aquarius has been replaced by a non-figurative image--the well. Elsewhere, humans mingle with animals, and in the case of Sagittarius, the half-man half-horse centaur is used as the symbol. The figure of Gemini - two children on a see-saw--is especially endearing and American.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Nisan / Ṭaleh (Aries).  Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Iyar / Shor (Taurus). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Sivan / Teomim (Gemini). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Tammuz / Sarton (Cancer). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Av / Ari (Leo). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Elul / Betulah (Virgo). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Tishrei / Moznayim (Scales). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Cheshvan / 'Aḳrab (Scorpio). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Kislev / Ḳesshet (Sagittarius)
Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Tevet / Gedi (Capricorn). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month o Sevat / D'li (Aquarius). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Providence, Rhode Island. Congregation Sons of Jacob. Month of Adar / Dagim (Pisces).Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

For more of my posts about synagogue wall paintings see:  


USA: Winter Can't Stop Preparations for Burlington, Vermont Mural Move

1910 Synagogue Mural Revealed in Burlington; Conservation Efforts to Begin

Century-Old Jewish Mural’s Hidden History in Vermont, The Forward (1/17/14)

USA: The Walnut Street Shul in Chelsea, Mass., A Synagogue Full of History and Art (Part 1)

USA: Green Pastures Baptist Church in the Bronx Protects its Synagogue Decorations 

USA: Revisiting LA's Breed Street Shul with Eye on Murals

USA: Mazal Tov, or Signs of the Time (New York's Stanton Street Shul & Its Painted Decoration, Part II)

USA: New York's Stanton Street Shul & Its Painted Decoration, Part I

USA: A Visit to Boston's Vilna Shul

USA: New Haven's Orchard Street Shul (1925)

USA: Cincinnati's Alhambra (Plum Street Temple's Dazzling Interior)

 

 

USA: Woonsocket, Rhode Island's Remarkable Tent of Meeting, of Concrete and Colored Glass

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design, 1962.

USA: Woonsocket, Rhode Island's Remarkable Tent of Meeting, of Concrete and Colored Glass
by Samuel D. Gruber

Next week I will join a group art historians, historians, preservation planners, and Jewish community members on a visit to the remarkable B’Nai Israel synagogue in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The synagogue was designed by Boston-based Jewish modernist Samuel Glaser (1902-1983), who had previously built Temple Shalom in Newton, Massachusetts.

B'nai Israel was dedicated on September 16, 1962. The synagogue is a little known modern American masterpiece, in which Glaser's expressive concrete architecture structure serves as a frame for a dazzling set of enormous triangular stained glass compositions by Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha (1929-2010). Now the future of the building is uncertain.

George Goodwin, who wrote the definitive article of Glaser and the synagogue in Rhode Island History (58:1, Feb. 2000), described the building fully. He wrote in part:

"As he had with Temple Shalom in Newton, Glaser devised an essentially symmetrical plan. The sanctuary and auditorium, bi­sected by a vestibule, form one long pavilion; when the sanctuary's 260 seats are occupied, 400 folding chairs can be placed in the auditorium. A garden court­yard, called a Court of Festivals, is reached through sliding glass doors. The corridor around the courtyard leads to a lounge, a kitchen, six classrooms, offices, a library, and a chapel. Most of these rooms face the courtyard; a few face a rear parking lot. These interiors are uncluttered, bright, and cheerful. The synagogue's lower level— reached from the vestibule by a grand curving staircase beneath crystal chande­liers, or via a rear staircase (there is no elevator)—contains a vast central space surrounded by kitchens, food service areas, cloakrooms, lounges, and exhibi­tion cases forming a small museum.

B'nai Israel combines a rich variety of materials and textures. The main pavilion is reinforced concrete, decorated at its north­ern and southern ends by polychromed brick. Dark woods are used for hallway paneling and overhead beams. The corri­dor outside the chapel is clad with white marble. At the top of the corridor wall, inscribed in Hebrew, is the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Beneath, in neat rows, are the names of deceased congregants..."

The sanctuary was further embellished by a parochet and other textiles designed by Anni Albers (1899-1994). The synagogue also has notable artwork by Ludwig Wolpert (1900-1981), and a bimah design by Glaser's colleague Antonio de Castro (1930-2017). The architect himself donated an outdoor sculpture of a Burning Bush Menorah by Beverly Pepper (b. 1922), that is an early work by the artist who has gone on to fame for her monumental works.

The best images of the synagogue are by Louis Davidson and can be found here at https://www.synagogues360.org/gallery/bnai-israel/.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design, 1962.

I've only seen this building in pictures, and thanks to distinguished scholar of (medieval) stained glass Madeline Caviness, I now have much better images of the windows - and I look forward to seeing these up close, and even more photographic documentation.  Prof. Caviness will be there on July 19th, too, as will George Goodwin. 

While I reserve final judgement until I fully experience the space and structure of B'nai Israel - I am sure I'll be mightily impressed. The building is related to a significant group of important mid-century synagogue designs related in time, materials, expressive language and architectural and congregational aspirations. But it does appear to me that B'nai Israel is especially comparable to Minoru Yamasaki's much larger North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Illinois, completed in 1963, but under designe at the same time. Both buildings appear to be broadly based on the concept of the Mishkhan (Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting) described in Exodus as the first designed religious space of the Israelites. The Mishkhan is described in modular terms, mostly as a framework (Exodus 15-25). The idea of a temporary tent of meeting, erected in the desert for wandering people, had great appeal in the post-World War II period, especially in the combined context of post-Holocaust communal trauma and the widespread American exodus of Jews from cities to rapidly expanding suburbs. While in the late 19th-century American Jews focused on the idea of the Temple, and Reform Jews felt comfortable enough in their new American home to call the synagogue "Temples," and (as I have written elsewhere) to happily adapt Greco-Roman temple forms for synagogue architecture.

Glencoe, Illinois. North Shore Congregation Israel. Minoru Yamasaki, architect, 1964. Photo: Paul Rocheleau.

Glencoe, Illinois. North Shore Congregation Israel. Minoru Yamasaki, architect, 1964. Photo: Paul Rocheleau.

In addition to Yamasaki's influence, Goodwin has rightfully pointed out  the relationship of Glaser's use of concrete, especially in the sanctuary ceiling beams, to work by Marcel Breuer. Similarly, there is a correspondence in the position and form of B'nai Israel's entrance vestibule to Philip Johnson's design at Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel, in Port Chester, New York, though overall Glaser's work is quite different than Johnson's. B'nai Israel is dynamic and expressive; Kneses Tifereth Israel is rational and cool.

The future of Glaser's B'nai Israel is uncertain. The Woonsocket Jewish community is now tiny, and even in 1962 when the synagogue was dedicated the community was at its peak. It never grew into the excessive seating capacity of the new synagogue.Today, the building is need of repair, but it is not clear how much and how urgently.

Like so many other important religious buildings of the 1950s and 1960s, B’nai Israel now suffers from changing demographics, and changing tastes and style in religious worship, and unfortunately, B'nai Israel has been and remains too little known. It was not included in Richard Meier's seminal 1963 Jewish Museum exhibition Recent American Synagogue Architecture, and thus lost the chance to be recognized by a wider audience in succeeding decades, and the catalogue of that exhibit subsequently became a primer and guide to significant modern synagogue design. I greatly regret that i perpetuated B'nai IsraeI's isolation by not including it in my 2003 Rizzoli book, American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community (Beth El in Providence, Rhode Island's other great modern synagogue, did make it in).

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design. Arikha's signature on the glass, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design, 1962. Photo: Louis Davidson.

Glaser's architecture remains impressive today bit it is the brilliance of the Arikha's thirty stained glass windows that draws the most attention. Goodwin writes that:

"... the sanctuary and auditorium's thirty stained-glass windows may be the finest ensemble in a modern American synagogue. Perhaps the architect thought about this medium in terms of his own name, although glass has meant something altogether different—and horrifying—to world Jewry since Kristallnacht in 1938."

And the great scholar of Jewish art Ziva Amishai-Maisels, professor emerita at Hebrew University, has recently written that:

"I have written about Arikha in my book, Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts and have always found him to be a fascinating and very important artist. The windows are one of his last and most successful forays into abstract art and should be preserved at all costs, whether in a synagogue, museum or any public place available, not only for their historical importance but for their beauty. They are not only important in a Jewish or Israeli context, but internationally, as he was an internationally renowned artist, starting from his abstract stage."

But it seems clear that that power of the windows is in large part because of their number  and their setting within their architectural frame. These enormous windows are not easily moved - and if they would be it is not clear they would maintain their power.  At next week's meeting we'll explore as many options as we can imagine for the survival of the buildings and its windows.

We hope that this discussion is not too late. Other important modern synagogues have been torn down and as I write this, I learn from Brad Kolodny that Temple Emanu-El in East Meadow, Long Island, built in 1957 and designed by Davis, Brody and Wisniewski is soon to be demolished. Temple Emanu-El, of which I will write more, was of the synagogues prominently featured in the 1963 Jewish Museum exhibit.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect, 1962.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island. B'nai Israel Synagogue. Samuel Glaser, architect; Avigdor Arikha, stained glass design, 1962.

USA: Thoughts About Touro Synagogue as Public Tours are Cancelled

Touro Synagogue Cancels Public Tours
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) On March 5th journalist Richard Salit reported in the Providence Journal that the Touro Synagogue Foundation had laid off the last of is staff, including Executive Director Steve Sitrin, and Malka Benjamin, coordinator of public programs. You can read the article here:


Update: Touro Synagogue tours suspended; museum on track


The immediate result is that tours of Touro Synagogue, the most historic and probably best known synagogue building in the United States have been canceled. Closing the synagogue is a dramatic step - since it is an important link in Newport's tourism network, and also the flagship Jewish tourist site in the country. Since almost everything about Touro has been elevated into the realm of national symbol, the symbolism of this move is very important.

Obviously the current financial situation which has hit all not-for-profits hard is at least partly to blame for the demise of the Foundation. Presumably the Foundation counted on grants and gifts to help cover salaries. There are probably other factors in play, too. The Foundation has been erecting an expensive - but to me somewhat problematic - visitor and interpretive center on a lot adjacent to the synagogue. My guess is that as happens with so many small organizations, the strain of expansion - even though funded primarily by a donor (former Ambassador John Loeb, a descendant of Newport Jews for whom the new Center is to be named) - was too great, especially when the new facility is forcing the organization to reinvent itself. Matters are, of course, complicated by the fact that the synagogue is owned by the historic (Sephardi) Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, and leased for a nominal fee to the active Orthodox Congregation Jeshuat Israel of Newport (which though its members are Ashkenazi, by agreement follows Sephardi ritual). Many other players have gotten involved over the years, most noticeably the U.S. Park Service - playing a role I have never quite understood. The Foundation exists beside the congregation, entrusted to protect and preserve the historic building, and to properly present it to the public.



According to the Providence Journal article, the 3,100 square foot Loeb Center for Religious Freedom is still scheduled to open in August. At that time, according to the article, tours will begin again (though I had previously been told when I visited Newport last summer and met briefly with recently fired Executive Director Sitrin that the presentation of the Center would, in fact, replace formal synagogue tours.)

I was impressed with Foundation's program that brought college students to Newport for the summer to serve as guides - I was even looking forward to encouraging some of my own students to apply. But was troubled but what I perceived to be a lack of legitimate historical and social inquiry in what I learned of the program of the new center. Like much of the work on Touro's history over the past century, the presentation as presently made known seems to lean more to the ideological and hagiographic view of Newport. We will have to wait and see what the new center's content is. My requests on behalf of ISJM and this blog for more information last fall went unanswered. I am concerned that even when open there may not be sufficient funds available, for now money will be needed for maintain and staff both synagogue and interpretation center.

Will the exhibition be static, or will there be an historian and/or curator at work? Will the Center encourage new research and interpretation (about Rhode Island and New England Jewish history, synagogue architecture, historic preservation, etc.) or will it maintain what the fairly static view of Touro and Newport's Jews which has been fine-tuned since Touro became a National shrine more than a half century ago? In the past there seems to have been a serious disconnect between history taught at Touro and the more wide-ranging work of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Society. It would a boon to both organizations if George Goodwin or some historian of similar qualification were brought in to link the two.

The website of Loeb's organization focuses almost entirely on the earliest history of Newport's Jewish community - and its religious freedom guaranteed by President George Washington in his famous letter to the congregation which stated that the new nation would give "bigotry no sanction." Still, that episode is just one small part of Touro's history, since the original Sephardi community dissolved not long after Washington's pronouncement.

Touro as the Foundation of Jewish Heritage Preservation

It is because Touro's greatest legacy may be its pioneering efforts at historic preservation (the very reason it is called the Touro Synagogue is because of an early endowment made to protect and preserve the empty and unused synagogue by Abraham Touro that the building survives today. More than a half-century before the Anti-Demolition League was formed to save Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, and more than 150 years before the World Monuments Fund started its Jewish Heritage Program, a few early American Jews had the foresight to plan the preservation of Touro.

As early as 1822 the Rhode Island American and General Advertiser wrote: We are told that the Jewish Synagogue at Newport is still standing, and with little expense might be long preserved, as a “handsome specimen of ancient architecture." A few months after this notice appeared, Abraham Touro made a bequest of $10,000 to the legislature of the state for “supporting the Jewish Synagogue in the State.” The following year, in the June 1823 session of the General Assembly there is mention of “An Act to Secure and Appropriate the Touro Jewish Synagogue Fund.” Endowing the building, even when it was not in use, protected it. It was in today’s terminology “mothballed,” until it would come into regular use again when Eastern European immigrants reconstituted the Newport Jewish community.

Thus began a nearly two century tradition of conserving the historic synagogue, which remains today the oldest standing synagogue buildings in North America. Most recently, the Touro Synagogue Foundation funded and oversaw an extensive restoration of the building that reversed some earlier work, and notably saw the complete restoration by Newman's, Ltd. of Newport of the synagogues many metal light fixtures and other valuable fittings (for a full and exemplary preservation report click here). The new Visitors’ Center will open in 2009, and I hope it tells this story, too. The interest shown by Abraham Touro established a precedent among American Jewish congregations of care and reverence for their synagogue buildings. Still, the vicissitudes of man and nature have caused most of the oldest synagogue buildings in American to be destroyed or demolished (and donors often prefer to build new synagogues than maintain older ones) so Touro remains among American Jewry's most precious possessions.

For further readings on the architectural and preservation history of Touro see:

Allen, T.J., 1948. "Touro Synagogue as a National Site," in Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jeshuat Israel. Friends of Touro Synagogue, Newport, R.I.

Goodwin, George M., 2000. “The Politics of Preservation: How Touro Synagogue Became a National Historic Site,” Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, 13:2 (Nov 2000), 177-207.

Schwartz, Esther I., 1958. “Touro Synagogue Restored, 1827-29,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XVII (summer 1958), 23-26.

Schwartz, Esther I., 1959. “Touro Synagogue Restored,” Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes, III (Oct 1959), 106-131.


More general histories include are varying reliability include:

Gutstein, Morris A. et al, 1948. Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jesuat Israel, Newport, Rhode Island, Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue National Historic Shrine, Newport.

Gutstein, Morris, A., 1958. To Bigotry No Sanction: A Jewish Shrine in America 1658-1958. New York: Bloch Publishing Company.

Lewis, Rabbi Dr. Theodore, 1975. "History of Touro Synagogue." Newport History: Bulletin of the Newport Historical Society 48, Part 3, No. 159 (Summer 1975):281-320.

Pool, David de Sola, 1948. “Some Notes on the Touro Synagogue,” Touro Synagogue of Congregation Jesuat Israel, Newport, Rhode Island, Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue National Historic Shrine, Newport, 7-13.

Schless, Nancy Halverson, 1973. “Peter Harrison, The Touro Synagogue, and the Wren City Church,” in Winterthur Portfolio 8 (1973), 187-200.