The 79th annual reading of George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport takes place Sunday, Aug. 16, at 1 p.m. at the Old Colony House, the second consecutive year the event has been held there rather than at Touro Synagogue.
Keith Stokes will read the letter. Stokes is vice chair of TSF Newport, associate director of the Rhode Island Division of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and Rhode Island Historian Laureate. Sam Shamoon, a longtime TSF Newport board member, will read the 1790 letter from Moses Seixas, warden of the local Jewish congregation, that prompted Washington’s reply.
Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, delivers the keynote. According to her organization, Laser will speak about the role church-state separation plays in protecting religious freedom, its legacy in Rhode Island, and her view that the principle is under threat today.
Washington wrote the letter after his first trip to Rhode Island as president. In it he affirmed the new government’s commitment to religious liberty as an inherent natural right, and wrote that the federal government gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance — a phrase he borrowed from Seixas’ letter.
Past keynote speakers and letter readers have included U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
The event is hosted by TSF Newport, formerly the Touro Synagogue Foundation. In-person seating is limited, but the program will be live-streamed on the organization’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/TSFNewportRI.
For information or to inquire about attending in person, contact Meryle Cawley at tsfn@tsfnewport.org or 401-847-4794, ext. 207. More on the 1790 letter is at TSFNewport.org/ReligiousFreedom.
