Adorning Ritual: Jewish Ceremonial Art from the Jewish Museum, New York

The Cleveland Museum of Art houses an encyclopedic collection, giving visitors valuable insights and perspectives into the lives and cultures of people around the world and throughout time. To enhance its permanent collection and to more fully represent the stories and objects important to our communities, the museum is displaying art on loan from the Jewish Museum, New York, in six galleries.

Most of the works are ritual objects relating to Judaism or the lives of Jewish people, from silver Torah finials to an inlaid marble panel commemorating a marriage. The objects have been placed in context with other works of the same time or region, allowing a fuller narrative to unfold. As you encounter these objects in the galleries, we invite you to consider their relationships to the other works in these spaces.

In addition to the loans from the Jewish Museum, two examples of Jewish ceremonial art from local collections are on display in two additional galleries: An etrog box recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art and a miniature Torah ark on loan from the Mishkan Or Museum of Jewish Cultures in Beachwood, Ohio.