Dedicated in 1763, Touro Synagogue is the oldest synagogue building in the United States. The synagogue is considered one of the ten most architecturally distinguished buildings of 18th century America and the most historically significant Jewish building in the United States.
The descendants of Jewish families who fled the Inquisitions in Spain and Portugal fled first to the Caribbean and then to Rhode Island, where they founded the congregation in 1658. Rhode Island offered the religious freedom they sought.
Touro Synagogue symbolizes the founding principle of religious freedom for all Americans. President George Washington wrote in his letter to the "Hebrew congregation at Newport" in 1790 that our new nation would give "to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance."
Touro Synagogue was designated a National Historic Site in 1946.
