| At The Vilna with JAS Member Artist Mel Brown and Rabbi Eliana Jacobowitz JArts at The Vilna Shul, 18 Phillips Ave, Boston, MA 02114. |
| The High Holidays are a season of reflection: a time to ask what we carry forward into the new year, and what we choose to release. This exhibit brings together Mel Brown and Rabbi Eliana Jacobowitz, two artists whose work speaks to that cycle of renewal through fiber, paint, and print. Together, these works invite us into the new year with intention, honoring both continuity and change, and are a beautiful elevation of the historic Vilna Shul building. |
| Exhibit on display August 18 – October 10. Open Hours FRIDAYS 1-4 PM: September 12, October 10, November 21, December 12 |
| About the artists Mel Brown is a self-taught painter and spiritual leader who works as an artist in a minimalist way often in slow careful dialogue with the sacred texts of Judaism. His paintings often begin as a quiet spiritual journeywithout a clear destination, guided not by a fixed idea but by the act of listening and connecting, a form of meditation that also serves as a form of visual midrash, storytelling. He most often works with nonrepresentational abstract images, honoring an interpretation of the 2nd Commandment, where the limitations become an invitation, inviting us to Mystery, inviting us to Being. For many years he has also been a dedicated teacher of Jewish mystical texts. In addition to leading intimate study groups in a line-by-line parsing of the Torah, he co-leads a post-denominational Jewish spiritual community in the Boston area. This exhibit was originally curated for Hebrew College. |
| Rabbi Eliana Jacobowitz creates tallitot (Jewish prayer shawls) as wearable art, bridging past and present through ritual. Each piece weaves together fragments of old garments with new fabric, evoking the ways memory, identity, and tradition shape who we are in community today.She has been the rabbi of Temple B’nai Brith since her ordination from Hebrew College in 2010. Born and raised in Israel, she studied law at Tel Aviv University and holds both a certificate in Fashion Design from Tel Aviv’s Miriam College and an MA degree in Medieval History from Boston University. |
| JArts at The Vilna Shul, 18 Phillips Ave, Boston, MA 02114. |