Touro Cemetery

Touro Synagogue Cemetery, also known as the Jewish Cemetery at Newport, dedicated in 1677, is located in the historic district of Newport, Rhode Island, not far from the Touro Synagogue and other Jewish graves are found nearby in the Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery on Farewell Street.

The cemetery is notable because of the poem written about it by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow entitled, "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport." Longfellow was vacationing with his family in Newport in the 1850s. the maritime prosperity that built Newport's fine colonial churches, synagogue, public buildings and homes had vanished when the port of Porvidence superseded Newport, and the great mansions of Newport in the guilded Age were still in the future. Newport in the 1850s was an old seaport town whose air of genteel decay and cool sea breeezes had recently begun to attract members of Boston's intellectual elite as a summer retreat. There were no Jews in Newport in this period; the synagogue was shuttered.

Longfellow, a scholar who who knew Hebrew, begins his poem by expressing his surprise at coming upon a synagogue in an old New England port town. After all, neither Postsmouth, where Longfellow grew up, nor Boston or Cambridge, where he lived, nor any other New England town or port had a colonial-era Jewish community.

" How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,Close by the street of this fair seaport town..."

but it is the final line that has caused the poem, and the cemetery, to be remembered,

"But ah! what once has been shall be no more!The groaning earth in travail and in painBrings forth its races, but does not restore,And the dead nations never rise again."

The American Jewish poet Emma Lazarus responded in 1867 [ [http://jwa.org/exhibits/wov/lazarus/el11.html JWA - Emma Lazarus - Early Jewish Themes ] ] with a poem entitled, "Inthe Jewish Synagogue at Newport," intended to let Longfellow know that the Jews might be down, but they weren't dead. [ A Note to Longfellow's "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport," Hammett W. Smith, College English, Vol. 18, No. 2. (Nov., 1956), pp. 103-104, Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-0994%28195611%2918%3A2%3C103%3AANTL%22J%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M]

The Synagogue is the oldest surviving synagogue building in the United States, and the cemetery is the second oldest Jewish cemetery in the country. The cemetery gates are decorated with torches turned to face downward, an acknowledgement of the ending of life's flame. Prior to the establishment of Temple Ohabei Shalom Cemetery in Boston in 1844, Jews from Massachusetts were sent to the Touro Synagogue Cemetery, the West Indies, or Europe for burial in sacred ground.

Judah Touro, a philanthropist who was born and reared in Newport, contributed $40,000, an immense sum at the time, to the Jewish cemetery at Newport. This funded the restoration and maintenance of the cemetery. He is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Newport. The inscription on his tombstone reads: "To the Memory of / Judah Touro / He inscribed it in the Book of / Philanthropy / To be remembered forever."Fleming, p. 31.] [ [http://www.ajhs.org/publications/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=223 Judah Touro: American Jewish Philanthropist ] ]

The cemetery's Egyptian revival gate and fence were designed by Botaon architect Isaiah Rogers (1810-49) who designed an identical gate for Boston's Old Granary Burying Ground. [ James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival, Routledge, 2005, p, 300]

the Jewish Cemetery at Newport

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down!

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the southwind's breath, While underneath these leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown, That pave with level flags their burial-place, Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.

The very names recorded here are strange, Of foreign accent, and of different climes; Alvares and Rivera interchange With Abraham and Jacob of old times.

"Blessed be God! for he created Death!" The mourner said, "and Death is rest and peace!" Then added, in the certainty of faith, "And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease."

Closed are the portals of their Synagogue, No Psalms of David now the silence break, No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.

Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.

How came they here? What burst of Christian hate, What persecution, merciless and blind, Drove o'er the sea -that desert desolate - These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?

They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure, Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire; Taught in the school of patience to endure The life of anguish and the death of fire.

All their lives long, with the unleavened bread And bitter herbs of exile and its fears, The wasting famine of the heart they fed, And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.

Anathema maranatha! was the cry That rang from town to town, from street to street: At every gate the accursed Mordecai Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.

Pride and humiliation hand in hand Walked with them through the world where'er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vast Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime, And all the great traditions of the Past They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus forever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

But ah! what once has been shall be no more! The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again.

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot.

No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent That an undying radiance was to shed.

What prayers were in this temple offered up, Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth, By these lone exiles of a thousand years, From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!

How as we gaze, in this new world of light, Upon this relic of the days of old, The present vanishes, and tropic bloom And Eastern towns and temples we behold.

Again we see the patriarch with his flocks, The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead, The slaves of Egypt, -- omens, mysteries, -- Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.

A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount, A man who reads Jehovah's written law, 'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare, Unto a people prone with reverent awe.

The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp, In the rich court of royal Solomon -- Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains, -- The exiles by the streams of Babylon.

Our softened voices send us back again But mournful echoes through the empty hall: Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound, And with unwonted gentleness they fall.

The weary ones, the sad, the suffering, All found their comfort in the holy place, And children's gladness and men's gratitude 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.

The funeral and the marriage, now, alas! We know not which is sadder to recall; For youth and happiness have followed age, And green grass lieth gently over all.

Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet, With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod. Take off your shoes as by the burning bush, Before the mystery of death and God.

Notes

ee also

* Touro Synagogue
* Judah Touro

External links

* [http://www.nps.gov/tosy/ Touro Synagogue]
* [http://www.tourosynagogue.org/longfellow_poem.php The Jewish Cemetery in Newport by Longfellow]
* [http://www.offbeattravel.com/touro.html Religious Freedom in Rhode Island]