Back to Shul Business

Back to Shul Business

At Touro Synagogue

March 18, 2019

by Aaron Ginsburg

also on facebook

I've met many visitors to Touro Synagogue since I started attending services regularly a few years ago. Many remarked on how welcoming our congregation is. One told me that Touro Synagogue is a place were all Jews can feel comfortable and welcome. 

As some of you know, I am a free lance reporter for the Boston Jewish Advocate, an English language weekly published since 1921. I've been asked to write an article about the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the appeal of the decision in the Congregation Jeshuat Israel vs Congregation Shearith Israel case.

In the course of my communications with the leadership of our Congregation, with our lawyer, Gary P. Naftalis, and with Louis M. Solomon, who is both the lead attorney for Shearith Israel and its Parnas (President), I kept hearing the same thing, and it was about the future, not the past! No one attempted to retry the case. 

CJI co-presidents Louise Ellen and Paul told us, "we are nevertheless confident that our congregation will continue to grow and thrive as it has for more than a century."

As Gary Naftalis put it, "We hope and expect that the Congregation’s right to continue to pray in the historic Touro Synagogue, as it has for over a century, will be respected." 

Louis Solomon said, "...we want to go into what we hope will be a very long and lasting period of harmony and cooperation with the congregation up there for the long betterment of the Touro Synagogue. We want to make sure that it remains an active vibrant house of worship open to all Jews."

Title Extending the olive branch Summary Taft, presidential 

candidate, offering olive branch to Senator Joseph Foraker, 

who opposed many of Roosevelt's policies. "Ohio" on 

platform.Contributor Names Rogers, W. A. (William Allen), 

1854-1931, artist Created / Published [1908?]

After I told Louis M. Solomon (Shearith Israel) that I was a CJI member, he asked me to pass the following message directly to Newport, " Please tell all of your friends we haven’t changed our position. If you remember, the congregation, I assume they told you, that last summer, after we won in the first circuit, we made a trip to Newport. I brought six of our colleagues, seven of us took the trip, to show Congregation Jeshuat Israel the respect that we had for them and to offer an olive branch and to move forward together in a cooperative way. 

CJI wasn’t in a position to do it at the time. They felt they needed to try their last licks at the Supreme Court. It was their right. I thought it was unfortunate but it was their right. So I'm pleased that that is behind us and I really hope that we can reengage in an instructive and harmonious way." 

He reiterated, "We're quite serious about it. It’s time to put this past behind us. There are not only decades but literally a century of harmony…and yes, ups and downs, but basic respect and harmony. Let’s re-achieve that." 

When I said I hoped to meet him ouside of court, he replied, "Agreed! Maybe we’ll be in shul together someday. That would be really nice."