Post by Ella.
The Newport harbor area, where we went after the Cliff Walk (see Grubb’s post), was packed. Tour busses galore, two cruise ships parked in the outer harbor, lines of people waiting for harbor cruises (or maybe they were waiting to be ferried out to one of the humongous cruise ships).
We were on a prowl for one last seafood lunch before heading up the hill to see the Touro Synagogue. At the end of a wharf we found “The Lobster Bar”. Now who WOULDN’T stop there? And there were tables available, outside, facing the marina. Did I stand up to get a few good shots? I think we are both suffering from the dreaded trip-enditis.
I have no food pics but you will have to imagine a glass of Pinot noir, a cup of creamy New England clam chowder with oyster crackers, and lobster on a brioche roll.
Stuffed, we waddled up the hill a few blocks to the Synagogue, arriving just as the 1:00 tour had started. The receptionist quickly gave us our tickets and shooed us up through the garden where we were met by a security guard and ushered into the temple. So, it wasn’t so much a tour as a 25 minute lecture of the history of the temple while we sat on old, hard-backed wooden benches.
Touro is the oldest Synagogue in the U.S. Sephardic Jews began migrating into the Rhode Island from Barbados as early as the 1650’s but it took another 100 years before the Jewish population was large enough to consider construction of a Synagogue. Building constructed and an active congregation attending, things were great until 1776 when the British arrived and occupied Newport.
A lot of people (Jewish and not) left and dispersed to other safer areas. The Rabbi, it seems, had been a British sympathizer and left the Synagogue as well. Not sure where he went. But there it was, a Synagogue with no congregation or Rabbi. It took another 100 years for a congregation to bloom with the addition of Ashkenazi Jews from Poland and Russia. Today, there is still an active congregation and a Rabbi.