THE CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
NOVEMBER 19, 1948
SYNAGOGUE AS NATIONAL SHRINE
(Continued from Page Five) Moses Levy & Isaac Hart trustees for building the Syna- �149.0.6
Naph Hart"
Other appeals sent to fellow Jews in Jamaica, Curacao, Surinam and London met with helpful responses. So on August 1, 1759, they broke ground by laying six corner-stones that the honors might be shared by six of its leading eager and enthusiastic subscribers, Aaron Lopez, Jacob Rodrigues Rivera, Naphtali bar Moshe, Isaac bar Eliezer, Isaac bar Moshe and Naphtali bar Isaac.
In the meantime, they had sent abroad for bricks and 196,716 arrived and were paid for August 26, 1760, and the building proceeded apace. The Reverend Andrew Burnbay, an English divine travelling through "the Middle Settlements in North America" passing through Newport at this period, saw the building going on and wrote, "It will be extremely elegant within when completed, but the outside is totally spoilt by a school which the Jews would have annexed to it for the education of their children."
My friend Rabbi Morris A. Gut-stein has unearthed in the archives of the Newport Historical Society an account book of the firm of Naphtaly Hart & Company, who evidently acted as treasurer or financial agents for the congregation during the building . . .
As always happens, funds ran short and the congregation had again to appeal for help to their New York brethren:
"Newport 6th April 1761. Gentlemen
It ta a matter of much Concern to the Congregation in this Town among whom I have the Honor to preside as Parnass (President)
for the Current year that they are Necessitated again to Supplicate the Charitable assistance of your Congregation who have already Cheerfully & Generously Contributed towards finishing our Synagogue � Greatly disappointed in their Expectations from the Charity of other Congregations and the Cost of Building Rising to much more than it was Conceiv'd it would they now find themselves (unless in some way assisted by Other Congregations) unable to Compleut the Building � I do therefore by their Request intreat your good offices to Obtain the farther assistance of your Congregation towards compleating the Same, cither by a free will offering to be made in your Synagogue which to them Seems the most unexceptionable way or in any other method wch you shall judge the most agreable to Obtain the good purposes Intended � the Congregation here Confidently Relying on your Good Endeavours and the Zeal of your Congregation to promote so Charitable & useful an undertaking have no doubt but in due time I shall Receive your favourable Answer hereunto�
Wishing you and Each of your Congregation Length of Days with much Felicity, I have the Honoi Gentlemen to Subscribe
Your Obedient Servant
Naph Hart"
The work went on apace and they continued to solicit friends for furniture and ornaments such as the following: "Messrs Joseph Simeon & Samuel Judah
Newport July 25th 1762. Gentl./
As we have now contracted with Workmen, who are actually at Work, to compleat the Hechal (the ark, or recess, in the synagogue in which the Holy Scrolls of the Law are kept), Tebah (the reading platform in synagogue), &
Benches of our Synagogue, are in great hopes same will be furnished by Rosasanah (Rosh ha-Shana � or New Year): We are getting ready such furniture & Utensills as are needful, for which reason our Mahamad (the 'standing committee' or body of trustees) desires me to address this to you, Gentlemen, that you will be so kind as to make enquiry, who made any offerings of Furniture & Ornaments towards this pious undertaking, to receive & forward the same to us with convenient speed; that it may be here ready against the Time of Consecrating the holy Fabrick.
The gratefull sence we have of the Liberal assistance of your K.K. will put us in mind, of giving timely notice of the Dedication Day, that those Gentlemen who please to favor us with their Company may not be disappointed. Underneath I note what offerings came to our notice, if there be any more we leave to your enquiry, not douting your Zeal in so Laudable cause.
You will always find in me a ready complyance to whatever Services I can render you, either in my publick or private capacity; wishing you health & prosperity I conclude respectfully
Genl./ Your very hum. Servt.
Moses Lopez
Parnas (President)"
, This produced, "a Tamid" ("Continual," the Perpetual Lamp burning in front of the Ark in the synagogue) from Mr. Samuel Judah, some candlesticks for the "Hechal" (the Ark, or recess, in the synagogue in which the Holy Scrolls of the Law are kept) and the "Tebah" (the reading platform in synagogue) from Mr. Samuel Hart. In the meantime, in 1769, the Reverend Isaac de Abraham Touro,
educated as a rabbi in the famous academies of Europe, came to settle in Newport and became the chazan (a reader of the prayers who conducts the service) of the congregation.
At last, December 2, 1763, the day arrived to dedicate the synagogue. The Reverend Ezra Stiles, destined to become Yale's third president, then the settled Congregational minister at Newport, records the events of that great occasion as he for the first time saw the new building:
"In the Afternoon was the dedication of the new Synagogue in this Town. It began by a handsome procession in which were carried the Books of the Law, to bo deposited in the Ark. Several Portions of Scripture, & of their Service with a Prayer for the Royal Family, were read and finely sung by the priest & People. There were present many Gentlemen & Ladies. The Order and Decorum, the Harmony & Solemnity of the Musick, together with a handsome Assembly of People, in a Edifice the most perfect of the Temple kind perhaps in America, & splendidly illuminated, could not but raise in the Mind a faint Idea of the Majesty & Grandeur of the Ancient Jewish Worship mentioned in Scripture.
"Dr. Isaac de Abraham Touro performed the Service. The Synagogue is about perhaps fourty foot long & 30 wide, of Brick on a Foundation of free Stone; it was begun about two years ago, & is now finished except the Porch & the Capitals of the Pillars. The Front representation of the holy of holies, or its Partition Veil, consists only of wainscotted Breast Work on the East End, in the lower part of which four long Doors cover an upright Square Closet the depth of which is about a foot or the thkkness of the Wall,
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NATIONAL APPEAL Nov. 14 - Dec. 5
& in this Apartment (vulgarly called the Ark), were deposited three Copies & Rolls of Pentateuch, written on Vellum or rather tanned Calf Skin; one of these Rolls 1 was told by Dr. Touro was presented from Amsterdam & is Two Hundred years old, the Letters have the Rabbinical Flourishes.
"A Gallery for the Women runs round the whole Inside, except the East End, supported by Columns of Ionic order, over which arc placed correspondent Columns of the Corinthian order supporting the Ceiling of the Roof. The Depth of the Corinthian Pedestal is the height of the Balustrade which runs round the Gallery. The Pulpit for Reading the Law, is a Raised Pew with an extended front table; this placed about the center of the Synagogue or nearer the West End, being a Square embalustraded Comporting with the Length of the Indented Chancel before & at the Foot of the Ark.
"On the middle of the North Side & Affixed to the Wall is a raised Seat for the Parnas or Ruler, & for the Elders; the Breast and Back interlaid with Chinese Mosaic Work. A Wainscotted Seat runs around Side of the Synagogue below, & another in the Gallery. There are no other Seats or pews. There may be Eighty Souls of Jews or 15 families now in Town. The Synagogue has already cost Fifteen Hundred Pounds Sterling. There are to be five Lamps pendant from a lofty Ceiling."
Experts have been able to trace the architectural books which Harrison used from which he copied details and designs for the building. Professor Henry Russel Hitchcock, of Wesleyan University, describes the architecture, "upon an interior of the type of the Amsterdam synagogues of the previous century Harrison lavished the resources of English Palladian design, copying the galleries from Jones' Whitehall banqueting hall, other details from Gibbs, and the Ark of the Covenant from Langley & Kent."
I know of no picture or book of the Amsterdam synagogue then published ftjecessible to Harrison.""! rather surmise that the interior was not a copy of any one synagogue, but rather followed a traditional type commonly in use, with variations, at that period amongst Jews, equally made use of in the synagogues of London, Bevis Marks (1701), Dukes Place (1722), as in those of Amsterdam. Possibly Harrison had seen these London synagogues.
In an article in the American Hebrew (April 11, 1919), Albert S. Gottlieb, a distinguished Jewish architect, points out that the Newport synagogue "has not a trace of the religion of the occupants." Still, it merits the praise of Professor Hitchcock that "as a characteristic work of the international Academic reaction of the mid-eighteenth century in a rather unusual field it would be of unique distinction in any country in the world." He pronounces Temple Jeshuath Israel "altogether Harrison's masterpiece." Today the main entrance does not face the street and the building does not align its�lf with the sidewalk and streets in the vicinity. It is suggested that the general direction of Touro Street, in the course of years, has been
changed. The street entrance is through a small stone gateway erected by Abraham Touro, flanked by two pillars supposedly copied from the Temple of King Solomon. With the capture of Newport by the British in 1776, the great days of the synagogue were over. On the whole, the Newport Jews were ardently patriotic in the Revolutionary cause, so that those who were not enlisted actively in the patriotic cause fled the approach of the enemy. Many never returned to Newport and that city never again regained its importance as a seaport and commercial center.
During the British occupancy, the synagogue had been closed. After the evacuation, the buildings of the town were so damaged that it is said that the General Assembly of Rhode Island made use of the synagogue for a time as its meeting place. In 1781 it was used for a Town Meeting.
At the close of the eighteenth century the congregation had so fallen away that services ceased. In his recollections of Newport, Channlng described this sad situa-(Continued on Page Twelve)
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