In September 1912, a parade wound through the streets of Portsmouth. At its center were two flags — one Stars and Stripes, the other bearing a Star of David — both carried proudly as a naval band played. The destination was a building on State Street that had stood since 1827 as a Methodist Episcopal church. That day, it became Temple Israel, New Hampshire’s first synagogue.
The dedication was not only an event for the Jewish community. Portsmouth’s mayor attended alongside many members of the Methodist congregation that had once worshiped in the building, all declaring their support. Inside, the children of the congregation sang Mah Tovu, a traditional Hebrew prayer of welcome, and then — joined by the entire assembly — America.
That image of children blending Jewish prayer with patriotic song tells us something about the spirit of pluralism in New Hampshire. This dedication was not a private ceremony. It was a public, civic declaration that Jews belonged here, and that neighbors of all faiths could stand together.
A generation later, in November 1938, Temple Israel again became the site of a powerful interfaith moment. Children from the North Church School and Temple Israel’s religious school gathered for a united Thanksgiving service. The Portsmouth Herald placed the story on the same front page as the grim headline, “Anti-Jewish Drives Continue in Germany and Italy.” Even as synagogues across Central Europe lay in ruins after Kristallnacht, children in New Hampshire sang together in a celebration of gratitude.
That pattern of civic belonging continued in 1960 in Nashua where hundreds gathered for the three-day dedication of Temple Beth Abraham. Mayor Mario Vagge and the city’s ministerial association president brought greetings. A guest rabbi from Boston, Joseph Shubow, praised the freedom that allowed “men of all creeds to build religious temples” in America. Then he offered a pointed reminder: no candidate for public office should face discrimination because of their religion.
It was an unmistakable reference to the national controversy surrounding John F. Kennedy, who was then campaigning to become the first Catholic president. In Nashua, a synagogue dedication doubled as a civics lesson.
Taken together, these three moments — 1912 in Portsmouth, 1938 in the shadow of Kristallnacht and 1960 in Nashua — offer a history worth remembering. New Hampshire’s synagogue celebrations honored not just one congregation. They became stages on which the broader community practiced the art of pluralism: neighbors showing up, children learning belonging across differences, leaders reminding citizens of their shared constitutional principles.
These stories of friendship and fraternity are far too easily forgotten. They are part of New Hampshire’s, and America’s, past.
In 2025, with hate crimes against religious groups rising nationally, these older stories carry urgent lessons. Pluralism is not automatic. It has to be rehearsed, taught and made visible in public life in every generation.
New Hampshire has long known how to do this. A naval band marching with two flags in 1912. Children singing side by side in 1938. A mayor and a minister showing up in 1960.
The question for us is the same one those children lived when they sang America: what does it look like to live out our civic ideals together? How can we exercise these lessons today?
This legacy is not nostalgia. It is New Hampshire’s guidepost for the present.
Austin Reid Albanese is a historian of American Jewish life based in Rochester, New York. His work has appeared in the Bangor Daily News, Portland Press Herald, Albany Times Union and other publications nationwide.