For the evicted congregation, Touro Synagogue was never just a building

Boston Globe

a day ago

Eight years later, my daughter led a service for her bat mitzvah in front of the ark as a stream of sunlight illuminated this significant moment. Surrounded by family, friends and congregants, my husband and I blessed our daughter, longing for her future well-being. On that day, I understood how deeply the building had woven itself into my own family history and connected us to the shared Jewish experiences of previous generations.
Since April, our services have taken place without any of the splendor of this historic home. After
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Our eviction wasn't a surprise but no less disgraceful. Two congregations have laid claim to Touro — my congregation, which has operated there for more than a century, and Congregation Shearith Israel, which supported Touro's founding from its home in New York City.
It is beyond comprehension to understand how a congregation so far removed, geographically and relationally, could make such a consequential decision about a place they have never truly known, all the while removing the very soul that existed there.
The ruling leaves our thriving Jewish congregation ripped from its roots. Though we have been a responsible tenant, we have also been Touro's beating heart, sustaining it spiritually, financially, and communally through generations of devotion and presence. No matter
It's true that the soul of Touro, and of Jeshuat Israel, was never in its bricks. It was, and is, in the people. But the soul, however, like congregants, is interconnected with a physical space to dwell in, to act through, to make meaning tangible.
Many of the 100-plus members have known this much longer than I have. Rita, now 92 years old, as a young woman courted her husband, Aaron, from the Touro balcony and later became both the first female congregant and the first woman to serve as CJI president in 1999.
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Yaakov, following five generations of celebrations and milestones on both sides of his family at Touro Synagogue, is to have his bar mitzvah this year on the heels of his father and great ancestors.
Having been embraced by this community, I have seen firsthand how much it means to the Jews of Newport: I know the young girls who chanted Torah for the first time at Touro last year. I know their grandparents who wiped tears from their eyes as they watched.
I know the pride of Mr. Josephson and Mrs. Davis who told our children stories from their own childhoods. I know the dedication of Ron, our security guard. I know our rabbi who, since he arrived, has been integrating traditions of our Spanish-Portuguese origins into our Jewish practices.
And I know the heartbreak we all feel now. A Jewish concept explains that the soul, the neshama, is not just the engine of life; it also embodies its meaning and purpose and it uses the physical body to fulfill this mission. This partnership of spiritual and physical is essential. In the same vein, there exists a bond between a building of worship and its congregation. When congregations relocate for their own practical or spiritual purposes, breaking that bond can be generative. But ripping the bond apart without a congregation's consent creates a spiritual dislocation and a profound disruption of wholeness.
I wish that my fellow New Yorkers who brought this lawsuit could know for themselves what it means to be Jewish in Newport. It's not passive. It's not inherited without effort. It's personal. It requires presence. It requires each of us to actively sustain a community that is small but mighty, rich in heart and history. And that we have. CJI has faithfully preserved both this historic building and the vibrant community within it, with unwavering dedication and care.
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The tragedy lies in the belief that this new situation serves the collective Jews of Newport. As Jeshuat Israel meets across the street, at the historic Levi Gale House with windows that directly overlook Touro, it weighs heavily to think of the unnecessary action that led to this schism between Jews and a grueling legal process that reduced a centuries-old relationship and a web of historical documents into a simplified landlord-tenant framework.
Yes, we have been invited to CSI's Touro services. But it is a profound insult to our legacy and current membership to have been given an ultimatum to accept that in order to keep using the space that has sustained us, we must allow the operations of our community to be dictated by outsiders.
We remain a functioning community with places to worship, programs to run, and members to support. We will continue to do what we've always done: sustain Jewish life, in and around Newport County, with heart, dignity, and the deep, enduring knowledge that our legacy is not something that can be taken; only lived.
A building does not define a Jewish community, but to deny that our spiritual spaces embody memory, spirit, and identity is to erase what makes them sacred. Let this moment be recorded for what it is — a profound loss of a living bond.
Molly R. Goldman is a member of Congregation Jeshuat Israel.