The Unknown Story of Judah Touro
By Rabbi Menachem Levine (Guest Writer)
Streets, synagogues, and hospitals bear his name, but very few know his story—or that he rediscovered his Judaism at age 70.
There are synagogues, streets, a hospital, and a major Jewish university system named after Judah Touro. His name is associated with the highest level of charitable giving to both Jewish and secular institutions. But few people know his remarkable life story.
Judah Touro was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on June 16, 1775, to Chazan Isaac Touro and Reyna Hays. His father, Chazan Isaac Touro, was born in Amsterdam in 1738. He migrated to the New World in 1758 at the age of twenty. In 1760, Chazan Touro was appointed as the spiritual leader of Yeshuat Yisrael in Newport, one of the first Portuguese Sephardic congregations in the American colonies.
Under the leadership of Chazan Touro, Yeshuat Yisrael constructed a new synagogue building, which today is the oldest synagogue building in the United States with daily services. (It is the second oldest synagogue after Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, in New York City.) Chazan Touro was a close friend of the leading Colonial academic and the future President of Yale College, Ezra Stiles.
Shortly after the outbreak of the American Revolution, Newport was taken by the British, and the Jewish supporters of the revolution fled. The synagogue closed, and Chazan Touro ran with his family to Kingston, Jamaica. He died there on December 8, 1783. Subsequently, Judah’s mother returned to the United States with her children, welcomed by her brother, Moses Michael Hays, who had helped found Boston's first bank. She died in 1787, and Hays became the guardian of the Touro children. He raised them and later trained them in his business.
At the age of 22, Judah Touro successfully oversaw the sale of a valuable shipment to the Mediterranean, indicative of his early financial and business acumen.
Starting Anew in New Orleans
In 1801, Touro left for New Orleans, located in the French territory of Louisiana, which was then a small town of approximately 10,000 inhabitants and home to only a handful of Jews. Some conjecture that he moved because he had asked his uncle for permission to marry his daughter, Catherine Hays, but his uncle refused. Touro never married, but his move to New Orleans brought with it tremendous financial success.
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