The Facts
On October 29, 2026, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) announced 'Furnishing American Synagogues: Jewish Ceremonial Art,' an installation presented with the Jewish Museum, New York. The exhibition opens November 1, 2026, and runs through October 24, 2027, in the Cleveland Foundation Gallery and the Betty and Max Ratner Gallery (galleries 208 and 224A). Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it includes an early-1900s silver Torah crown, a contemporary alms container, and a monumental Torah ark carved in 1899 for a Sioux City, Iowa, synagogue. This is the third such installation from the Jewish Museum at the CMA, and it accompanies the museum's Jewish Arts Initiative, launched in 2024, which is supported by a $2.5 million endowment grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. and multi-year funding from the Mandel Foundation.
The Signal
The installation reflects a sustained institutional commitment: the CMA made its first intentional acquisition of Jewish ceremonial art in 2024 with an Etrog Box by Ilya Schor, and has since added two curatorial hires—Rachel Richman, assistant curator, and Itamar Sitbon, curatorial fellow—dedicated to the initiative. For collectors and curators, this signals a growing integration of Jewish material culture into encyclopedic museum programming, moving beyond isolated exhibitions to a permanent curatorial presence. The endowment grant brings the CMA halfway to its goal for a Jewish Arts Endowment, positioning the museum as a leader in this field.
- Artists: Ilya Schor
- People: William Griswold, James Snyder, Rachel Richman, Itamar Sitbon, Ada de Wit, Kristen Windmuller-Luna
- Museums: Cleveland Museum of Art, Jewish Museum, New York
- Locations: Cleveland
- Prices: $2.5 million
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