Touro Synagogue: America’s Oldest Jewish House of Worship

The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, is home to the second-oldest congregation in the United States. As Sephardic Jews began emigrating from the Caribbean to colonial America in the seventeenth century, the Jewish population of Newport grew and eventually established the Nephuse Israel Congregation, which later became the Congregation Jeshuat Israel toward the end of the 1600s. By the mid-eighteenth century, the community had acquired sufficient financial support to build a synagogue and began construction in 1759. Designed in the European Palladian style that was popular in colonial architecture, the synagogue was completed in 1763. Later named after Isaac Touro who kept watch over the institution during the American Revolution, the building was designated a National Historic Site in 1946.