Congregation Jeshuat Israel

Congregation Jeshuat Israel (קהל קדוש ישועת ישראל, Salvation of Israel) is an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It traces its origins to a Sephardic Jewish community established in Newport around 1658, and was the resident congregation at the historic Touro Synagogue from 1883 until 2025. After it was evicted by the building's owner, Congregation Shearith Israel of New York City, in April 2025, Jeshuat Israel relocated its services to the Levi Gale House across the street from Touro Synagogue, which it owns.^[1][2][3]

The congregation prays in the Orthodox tradition using the Nusach Sefard liturgy, and as of 2025 served roughly 100 member families on Aquidneck Island.^[2][4]

A small Sephardic Jewish community first appeared in Newport around 1658, when a group of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish families, descendants of conversos who had fled the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, arrived in the colony, most likely from Jewish communities in the Dutch and English Caribbean such as Barbados and Curaçao. They were attracted by the religious tolerance enshrined in the founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams.^[2][5][6] Land for a Jewish cemetery was bought in 1677 by Mordecai Campanall and Moses Pacheco, an event traditionally treated as the formal beginning of organised Jewish communal life in Newport.^[7]

For its first century, the community worshipped in private homes. By the late 1750s it had grown sufficiently in size and wealth to commission a permanent synagogue, and the Newport architect Peter Harrison was hired to design the building. The cornerstone was laid in 1759 and the synagogue, then often referred to as Yeshuat Israel, was dedicated on 2 December 1763 during the festival of Hanukkah under the spiritual leadership of Isaac Touro.^[5][8]

The Revolutionary War devastated the Newport Jewish community. With the British occupation of the city, most members of the congregation left for Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, while the synagogue building was used as a hospital and a public meeting hall. After the war the congregation never fully revived; the synagogue ceased holding regular services around 1822 and the community largely dispersed. Members continued to be brought back to Newport for burial in the congregational cemetery, and the brothers Abraham and Judah Touro, sons of Isaac Touro, left bequests to maintain the synagogue building, the cemetery and the access street, which was renamed Touro Street in their honour.^[5][6] In the early 19th century, with no functioning Newport congregation, responsibility for the building and its ritual objects was entrusted to the older and larger Sephardic Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City.^[9]

The arrival of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth century revived Jewish life in Newport. In 1881 this new community petitioned Congregation Shearith Israel to reopen the historic synagogue for regular services. With the agreement of the Newport City Council, which administered the Judah Touro Ministerial Fund, Abraham Pereira Mendes was invited from London in 1883 as the new spiritual leader. The reconstituted community incorporated itself as Congregation Jeshuat Israel, and Shearith Israel required it to operate as an Orthodox congregation following the traditional Spanish and Portuguese rites used by the colonial founders.^[5][10][11]

After several years of disagreement over which body actually controlled the property, Jeshuat Israel and Shearith Israel signed a lease in 1903, formalised in 1908, under which Jeshuat Israel rented the building from Shearith Israel for a nominal one dollar a year. Under the lease the Newport congregation was required to follow the Spanish and Portuguese liturgy traditionally used at the synagogue.^[9][10][11] In the early twentieth century the membership shifted further, as numerous interrelated families from the Dokshytsy and Glębokie area of the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus) settled in Newport and came to make up more than half of the community.^[7]

In 1925–26 Jeshuat Israel paid to move the Levi H. Gale House, a Greek Revival house designed by Russell Warren, from Washington Square to its current location at 85 Touro Street, opposite the synagogue, to serve as a Jewish community centre.^[12][a] In 1946 the synagogue building was designated a National Historic Site. In 1948 a non-sectarian Friends of Touro Synagogue was created, later reorganised as the Touro Synagogue Foundation, to raise funds for the upkeep of the building.^[5] Across the second half of the century the congregation operated a Hebrew school and a wide range of educational and cultural programmes, and traditionally hosted the annual public reading of George Washington's 1790 letter to the "Hebrew Congregation in Newport".^[2][8]

A long-running dispute over ownership of Touro Synagogue and its ritual objects came to a head in 2012, when Jeshuat Israel sought to sell a pair of 18th-century silver Torah finials (rimonim) made by the New York silversmith Myer Myers to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for 7.4 million dollars. The congregation said the proceeds would fund an endowment for the maintenance of the synagogue and the salary of a rabbi.^[3][9]

Shearith Israel objected and sued, claiming that it owned the synagogue and its contents on the basis of the 19th-century transfer of the property to it as trustee. In May 2016 U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Providence ruled in favour of Jeshuat Israel and rejected Shearith Israel's claim of effective oversight. The decision was reversed in August 2017 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in an opinion written by retired Justice David Souter, which confirmed Shearith Israel's title to the synagogue and to its ritual objects, including the rimonim and a centuries-old Torah scroll. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case in March 2019.^[3][10][13]

After repeated unsuccessful attempts at mediation, Shearith Israel served a notice of termination on Jeshuat Israel in October 2022, demanding that the Newport congregation vacate the synagogue by 1 February 2023. When Jeshuat Israel did not leave, Shearith Israel filed an action for trespass and ejectment.^[14] The eviction filings prompted strong public criticism from the local community and from Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline, who described the proceedings as "shameful and egregious".^[15] The congregation's then co-president, Louise Ellen Teitz, said the membership was "shocked" by the move and accused Shearith Israel of a "shameful power grab".^[15]

In September 2023 the Rhode Island Superior Court ruled that the termination notice was valid and that Shearith Israel was entitled to immediate possession; an appeal followed. On 10 April 2025 the Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that decision, holding that a 1945 historic-preservation agreement between the two congregations and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior did not modify the underlying 1908 lease and did not impose any consultation requirement before eviction.^[14][13][3] Within days, Jeshuat Israel handed over the keys, ending more than 140 years of continuous worship in Touro Synagogue.^[9]

Following the eviction, Jeshuat Israel moved its services across the street to the Levi Gale House at 85 Touro Street, where it has continued to hold daily, Shabbat and festival services in line with its Orthodox Nusach Sefard rite.^[2][16] A newly incorporated Newport-based congregation, Congregation Ahavath Israel, took over occupancy of the synagogue and began holding services there in time for Passover 2025.^[3][17]

On 1 May 2025 Shearith Israel filed a fresh lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court accusing Jeshuat Israel of misappropriating more than 1.6 million dollars drawn from the 19th-century Abraham and Judah Touro funds, of failing to make required repairs and to file annual reports for the Abraham Touro fund, and of removing two Torah scrolls and other ritual items at the time of the eviction. Jeshuat Israel rejected the allegations as baseless.^[16][4] Newport This Week and other local outlets reported that, despite the legal conflict, members of the two congregations sometimes cross Touro Street to make up the minyan of ten worshippers required for certain prayers.^[17]

Congregation Jeshuat Israel is an Orthodox synagogue that, while traditionally tied to the Spanish and Portuguese rites of its colonial founders, today follows the Nusach Sefard liturgy and uses the ArtScroll Nusach Sefard prayer book. The congregation describes itself as welcoming worshippers of all levels of observance.^[2] It maintains a full-time rabbi and provides life-cycle, educational and pastoral services to the Jewish community of Newport and Aquidneck Island.^[2] Notable past spiritual leaders associated with the post-1881 congregation include Abraham Pereira Mendes (rabbi 1883–1893) and Henry Samuel Morais (1900–1901).^[5]

• Touro Synagogue
• Congregation Shearith Israel
• Levi H. Gale House
• Isaac Touro
• Judah Touro

• Official website
• Touro Synagogue, Congregation Jeshuat Israel, Library of Congress – Historic American Buildings Survey
• Touro Synagogue history at the Loeb Visitors Center