Isaac Touro

Who was Isaac Touro?

The Reverend Isaac Touro was a Dutch-born American rabbi. He was a Jewish leader in colonial America. Born in Amsterdam, in 1758 he left for Jamaica. In 1760, he arrived to serve as hazzan and spiritual leader of Jeshuath Israel, a Portuguese Sephardic congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. Soon after his arrival the congregation built the Touro Synagogue, which is today one of the oldest synagogues in the USA.

When the American Revolution broke out, Touro was a Loyalist, and when the British captured Newport in 1776, he remained in the city with his wife Reyna and their children, while many of his Whig congregants fled. In 1779, he moved with the British to New York, but he had no means of supporting himself there, and was dependent on British charity, so in 1782 he moved to Kingston, Jamaica, where he died in 1783.

His sons Abraham and Judah were renowned philanthropists.