Class trip to Touro Synagogue and Newport Historical Society Archives

JDST 269 students bring the early modern Jewish Atlantic world to life

This Spring students enrolled in JDST 269 “Jews, Conversos, and Monarchs,” led by Dr. Oren Okhovat (Jewish Studies Program, Yale) and accompanied by Yale Jewish Studies librarian Konstanze Kunst traveled to Newport, Rhode Island for a hands-on exploration of Sephardic history. There they were joined by Dr. Emily Colbert Cairns and her students from the Hispanic Studies program at Salve Regina University. The group toured the landmark Touro Synagogue and delved into the archives of the Newport Historical Society (NHS) under the guidance of former NHS director Dr. Dan Snydacker, Brandeis PhD candidate Joseph Weisberg, and Salve Regina student intern Isabella Meier. 

Inside the synagogue, established in 1763, students encountered tangible echoes of the Atlantic Jewish diaspora: an ark donated by the Portuguese and Spanish congregation of Curaçao, silver ornaments and a Torah scroll sent from Amsterdam, and a layout modeled on Sephardic congregations in London and Jamaica.

At the NHS archives, Yale and Salve students read original eighteenth-century letters from the Aaron López Collection. López was a Portuguese-Jewish merchant who stitched Newport into global networks reaching Portugal, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Northern Europe. Students practiced reading period handwriting and discovered correspondence on subjects ranging from family remittances and local trade to frank discussions of the trans-Atlantic slave economy.

“It’s one thing to analyze networks from a distance in the classroom,” Dr. Okhovat reflected. “It’s another to sit in Touro’s wooden pews, hold López’s own letters, and see how ideas, goods, and people moved across various spaces.”