Isaac Touro delivered a Hebrew Thanksgiving sermon on Nov. 28, 1765, praising King George III for protecting Newport’s Jews. His sermon took place before worshippers in the new Touro Synagogue. Since 1658, Newport had been a haven for Jews who escaped ...

When Sara Galner first joined the Saturday Evening Girls Club, she had no idea she’d end up making pottery that sold for thousands of dollars to the rich and famous. She was a poor Jewish immigrant, born in 1894 in ...

Before Polish immigrants arrived in New England they had already made it to the Jamestown colony in Virginia as craftsmen. Over the centuries Polish immigrants came to New England in waves, the first from 1870 to 1914, the second after ...

In 1956, a 24-year-old taxicab driver named Leonard Nimoy got a call to pick up a Mr. Kennedy at the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles. It was Sen. John F. Kennedy, who needed a ride to the Beverly Hilton. He was ...

King Charles Solomon ruled Boston’s underworld without challenge until a small-time gangster gunned him down in the men’s room of the Cotton Club on Jan. 24, 1933. He was into rum-running, dope peddling, prostitution, theaters and nightclubs, including the Cocoanut ...

Artie Shaw was a brilliant musician, an abusive husband and a complicated personality. All three of those qualities can be traced to his difficult childhood in New Haven. He would become one of the finest jazz clarinetists ever and the ...

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a small farm in Colchester, Conn., was a dream for many Jewish immigrants trying to eke out a living in the tenement slums of New York’s Lower East Side. Colchester and other ...

The Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I., has long been a symbol of tolerance, beginning as a haven for Jews who escaped the Inquisition and later serving as a sanctuary for African-Americans who escaped slavery. Touro Synagogue was consecrated on Dec. ...

Leonard Bernstein became one of the most successful musicians in American history, conducting the New York Philharmonic for years and composing works for the musical theatre, including MASS, West Side Story, Candide and On the Town. He also composed three symphonies, ...

In 1790, Newport, R.I., was home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in America. Its Touro Synagogue had been established in 1763. The city, with its history of welcoming people of differing religious beliefs, was home to as many ...