The Connecticut Mikveh

When Stuart Miller was asked to visit an old ritual slaughterhouse, he didn’t expect fireworks. Miller was an expert on ancient mikvehs (Jewish ritual baths) and sites in Israel around 2,000 years old. The idea of a 19th-century farming community in Connecticut delivering any surprises was almost ridiculous. Even historians believed that the Jewish immigrants who lived at Old Chesterfield had abandoned their religious laws.

Incredibly, Miller found a mikveh and the discovery changed Jewish history in the US. Due to the young age of the site, Miller expected a modern mikveh, but instead of a tiled pool, the bath consisted of stone, concrete floors, and wooden stairs and walls. Not only did it resemble ancient baths in Israel, but a pipe feeding water from a local pond adhered to the law of only using water from the heavens or the earth