America’s oldest synagogue closed. Then an unlikely group tended its cemetery.
For decades after its congregation faded, one of America’s oldest Jewish cemeteries endured — preserved by both Christians and Jews
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Music The Newport Folk Festival imagined a more equitable world — can that dream be revived?
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Fast Forward 22-Year-Old Woman Accused Of Posting Nazi Propaganda At California High School
A 22-year-old woman has been charged with posting neo-Nazi propaganda on the walls of an Orange County, California high school earlier this year, the Orange County Register reported Monday. Grace Elisabeth Ziesmer is accused of two counts of graffiti and one count of vandalism, which allegedly took place at Newport Harbor High School as well…
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Fast Forward Rhode Island Congregation Wins $7M Shul vs. Shul Legal Battle Over Shearith Israel
The Rhode Island congregation that worships at the United States’ oldest synagogue owns that house of worship and its assets, a federal judge ruled on Monday, rejecting a New York synagogue’s claim to oversight. The ruling follows a four-year legal battle that began when members of the Touro Synagogue in Newport tried to sell a…
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Fast Forward Feud Over Oldest Synagogue in Nation Heads to Closing Arguments
Lawyers for two Jewish congregations feuding over the ownership of the United States’ oldest synagogue will make their final arguments before a federal judge in Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday. The long-running dispute focuses on who owns the 250-year-old Touro Synagogue, the local Newport, Rhode Island, congregation that worships there or another in New York…
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News America’s Oldest Synagogue Wrestles With Court Battle and Its Own Decline
Rabbi Marc Mandel’s voice filled Touro Synagogue one recent Saturday morning, drifting past the wooden columns that line the basilica and rising toward the women’s gallery, just as the voices of baalei tefillah, or prayer leaders, did 250 years ago. Tourists stream through this, the oldest synagogue in America, five days a week. But it…
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News Synagogues Fight Over for Whom the Bells Toll
American Jewish history goes on trial June 1 in a courtroom battle that could decide the future of the nation’s oldest synagogue. At stake is a set of silver Torah bells known as rimonim, thought to be worth more than $7 million. But according to two warring congregations, the outcome could deeply affect Jewish life…
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News Touro Synagogue Turns 250 With ‘Order and Decorum’
On December 2, 1763, the first day of Hanukkah, a procession wound through Newport, R.I., carrying three Torah scrolls bound for their new home in a synagogue that would quickly establish its place in American Jewish lore. When the scrolls entered the newly built Touro Synagogue, their arrival was celebrated with music and prayer that…
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