Oldest active US synagogue opens RI visitor center

The AP reports:

The Touro Synagogue was barely 25 years old when George Washington offered a vision of religious tolerance in a letter he sent its congregants.

The new American government, the president wrote in the most famous passage of the 1790 letter, "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."

A copy of the letter is the highlight of a new $12 million visitors center opening Sunday next to the Touro Synagogue, the oldest existing Jewish house of worship in the United States.

The visitors center details the history of the synagogue, which was dedicated in 1763, but has a broader focus on colonial Jewish history and culture and the principles that guided the nation's founding, center curator David Kleiman said.

A great story.