Image courtesy National Park Service
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
These familiar lines from the sonnet The New Colossus were penned by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) in honor of The Statue of Liberty. Poet, essayist and champion of Jewish refugees, Lazarus spent summers with her family at “The Beeches” on the corner of Bellevue Avenue and Lakeview Avenue, next to Belcourt. Her first appearance in Newport was when she (age 18), and her father Moses Lazarus, signed the Touro Synagogue Visitor Book on 25 July 1867.