Bitter battle for control rages on
NEWPORT, R.I. — A bitter struggle for control over the nation’s oldest synagogue goes to trial this week, with lawyers saying they may use more than 1,000 exhibits dating as far back as 1733.
The congregation that worships at the 250-year-old Touro Synagogue in Newport says its very existence is at stake. The congregation that owns it accuses the Newport congregation of lawlessness for agreeing to sell a pair of ceremonial bells valued at more than $7 million.
The lawsuit and countersuit, brought by the nation’s first Jewish congregation, are being heard in a bench trial beginning Monday in U.S. District Court in Providence and rely on centuries of history.
Dedicated in 1763, the Touro Synagogue sits on a hill in this seaside town of Colonial homes and cobblestone streets. It is a National Historic Site and has been visited by three presidents: George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
In 1790, the congregation received a letter from Washington in which he wrote the government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” The letter, sent before the Bill of Rights was ratified, is held up as an affirmation of the fledgling government’s commitment to religious liberty.
In the years that followed, Jews left the city, and the synagogue closed. Touro’s contents were transferred to the nation’s oldest Jewish congregation in New York, Congregation Shearith Israel, established in 1654.
In the late 1800s, Jews re-established themselves in Newport and began worshipping there again. Congregation Shearith Israel sent the items back, including two pairs of rimonim, bells placed on the handles of a Torah scroll. They were made by Myer Myers, among the premier silversmiths of the Colonial era.
Around the turn of the century, there was a lawsuit and struggle for control of Touro. In settling it, the congregation that worships there, Congregation Jeshuat Israel, ultimately signed a lease in 1903 to rent Touro from Congregation Shearith Israel for $1 per year.
The Newport congregation acknowledges in its lawsuit the New York congregation owns Touro, but argues it holds it in trust for the Newport congregation’s benefit. It wants them removed as a trustee. It also says that it owns the rimonim outright.
The Newport congregation says it decided to sell reluctantly, and only because the congregation, which has around 100 families, needs the money.
“Jeshuat Israel is just one unforeseen expense away from financial disaster,” its lawyers wrote in a pretrial filing.
It says it chose to sell to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston because thousands of people would be able to see the bells.
