Touro Synagogue, built in 1763, is the oldest surviving synagogue in North America. It sits at a slight diagonal to Touro Street, a quirk of design that orients the congregation toward Jerusalem during prayer.

Designed by Peter Harrison, one of colonial Newport's finest architects, it was built for a Sephardic community with a remarkable story. Jews who fled persecution in Europe, resettled in Barbados and the West Indies, then made their way to Rhode Island, where they became some of the wealthiest merchants in the colonies.

In 1790, George Washington wrote to the congregation, declaring the new nation would give "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." It is one of the most powerful statements of religious liberty in American history.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace Newport's founding as a haven of religious tolerance, using the synagogue to show how that principle shaped the city's colonial identity.