NEWPORT — The Touro Synagogue Foundation will host its 78th annual George Washington Letter Reading on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 1 p.m. at the Old Colony House at the head of Washington Square in colonial Newport, marking a change of venue for the event that for generations had been held at Touro Synagogue.
The event centers on Washington’s historic letter dated Aug. 18, 1790, “To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island,” written after his visit to Newport. In his reply to a letter by Moses Seixas, warden of the local Jewish congregation, Washington articulated the new government’s commitment to freedom of religion.
In the famous letter, Washington wrote that “the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Washington also declared that “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
Rebecca Bertrand, executive director of the Newport Historical Society, has been selected to read the George Washington Letter this year. Meryle Cawley, executive director of Touro Synagogue Foundation, will read the letter to President Washington from Moses Seixas of Newport’s Hebrew Congregation, which inspired Washington’s famous response.
Crystal Williams, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, will deliver the keynote address.
The annual event has a long tradition of distinguished keynote speakers and letter readers, including Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
While in-person seating is limited, the event will be livestreamed, and all may attend virtually via a link on Touro Synagogue Foundation’s Facebook page: facebook.com/TouroSynagogue.
The reading honors the congregation that worshiped in Touro Synagogue, the nation’s oldest surviving Jewish house of worship, which was dedicated in 1763.
For more information or to inquire about the possibility of in-person attendance, contact meryle@tourosynagogue.org or call (401) 847-4794, ext. 207.
Additional details about President Washington’s 1790 letter are available at TouroSynagogue.org/ReligiousFreedom.
