Newport’s Colonial-Era Mikvah
Sorry, that was just a teaser; we are no closer to determining if Newport had a mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) in colonial times, but here is what we know.
Sephardic Jews built mikvot throughout the Atlantic world in the 1600s and 1700s. Archaeological remains, reconstructions, and several surviving mikvah structures have been found in Recife, Curacao, St. Eustatius, Barbados, Surinam, and Nevis. Shearith Israel (NYC) built the earliest known mikvah in the United States, ca 1730, and rebuilt it in stone in 1759. Philadelphia’s Mikveh Israel had one by 1782, and in 2001, near Baltimore’s Lloyd Street Synagogue, the remains of a mikvah were found.
The only known reference to a mikvah in Newport comes from a letter written by Rabbi Haim Carigal¹ (then living in Barbados) to Aaron Lopez² asking “me avise como está el Baño” (can you tell me how the mikvah is going).³ The letter isn’t dated, but Carigal left Newport in July of 1773, made a brief stop in Surinam, and then continued to Barbados, where he died in May of 1777. The project never materialized, perhaps due in part to the coming of the Revolution.
¹Born in Hebron in 1733, Rabbi Carigal traveled throughout the world before arriving in the colonies. He arrived in Newport in March 1773, where he delivered the first rabbinical sermon published in the colonies at what is now called Touro Synagogue. https://jewishrhody.com/stories/rabbi-haim-isaac-carigal-and-the-first-rabbinical-sermon-published-in-the-colonies,2684.
²Aaron Lopez: https://tsfnewport.org/history/jews-in-early-america/#jews-honored-patriots-park.
³From the collection of Menashe Lehman, printed in “Early Relations Between American Jews and Eretz Yisrael.” Algemeiner Journal 3 March 1992, B3.
