Join us for the final session in our online “Ideals of Freedom: Jewish Immigration, Arts and Advocacy” series for “From Synagogue to Museum: The Journey of a Jewish Immigrant Woodcarver and His Torah Arks.”
Torah arks and furnishings by immigrant woodworker Sam Katz once graced numerous synagogues in New England and beyond. One of his largest surviving works remains in Chelsea’s Walnut Street Synagogue.
Simona Di Nepi, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Curator of Judaica at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will tell the behind-the-scenes stories of two works by this artist in the museum’s collection, from the acquisition of a mysterious gilded lion 65 years ago, to the recent display of a rescued Torah ark from Chelsea and its transformation into the focus point of the MFA’s Judaica gallery.
The presentation will also highlight other works by American Jewish immigrant artists represented in the gallery.
About our speaker:
Simona Di Nepi is the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Curator of Judaica at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, where she is responsible for building and displaying the Judaica collection, and for curating “Intentional Beauty: Jewish Ritual Art from the Collection,” the museum’s first Judaica gallery. Originally from Rome, before moving to the United States, Simona studied and worked in London and Tel Aviv for 25 years. She filled curatorial roles, in both decorative arts and Old Masters, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where she cared for permanent collections and curated exhibitions. In Israel, she worked as curator at Anu: The Museum of the Jewish People and as a lecturer in Italian Renaissance art at Reichman University, Herzliya. Simona guided Boston University students for the development of “Real and Imagined: Rembrandt and the Jews of the 17th-Century Dutch Republic,” an in-focus MFA exhibition that opened in December 2025.
This series is made possible by a grant from the Congregation Ahabat Shalom Religious Fund and other generous donors.
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