David Killen Gallery – Jonathan Levine Collection of Art Auction
January 29 at 10 am
110 West 25th Street
www.DavidKillenGallery.com
212-426-0079
917-751-3323
646-590-2788

NEW YORK CITY — David Killen Gallery will offer the Jonathan Levine collection of art, donated to the Leffel School in Hartsdale, N.Y., on January 29 at 10 am. Among the highlights are a large painting by Wolf Kahn, other works by Kahn, a large sculpture by Roy Gussow, a circular painting by Ilya Bolotowsky and approximately 112 other works of art, sculpture and prints, to be sold for scholarship funds.

The Leffell School is a K-12 independent Jewish day school founded in 1966 and originally named the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester, under the leadership of Rabbi Max and Leah Gelb.

In 2000 the school started to build its second campus in Hartsdale, and today has a comprehensive, intellectually rigorous dual curriculum that empowers and cultivates each student in mind, body and soul.

During the class of 2007’s capstone trip to Poland and Israel, participants found an abandoned sefer torah in a locked antiques shop. While found in Poland this Torah originated in Romania. The Leffel School negotiated the purchase of the torah and its restoration by Rabbi Zerach Greenfield.

Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine was the brother of Renah Rabinowitz and the great-uncle of her grandchildren, many of whom are Leffell school students and alumni.

Rabbi Levine was an avid collector of art, as well as of Jewish books, manuscripts and incunabula.

When he passed away, it was Rabbi Levine’s family’s desire that his collections be used to help support and teach students in the Jewish day school — literally and figuratively. The goal was for the vast majority of the collections to be sold at auction with the proceeds benefiting scholarships to the school — which is important, as roughly 60 percent of families receive some level of tuition assistance in order to enroll their children. In fulfillment of his family’s wishes, the school has held onto a handful of items from Rabbi Levine’s collection to be used in teaching, and it is establishing the Rabbi Jonathan D. Levine Mini-Museum, including historical maps of Israel and pre-state Palestine, as well as other items from the collection that will be an asset to the school’s teaching.

In his life, Rabbi Levine was a lover of art, a lover of books and an editor/translator of books, including prayer books.

As one mourner wrote at the time of his funeral: “When I was a teenager, Jonathan, then in rabbinical school, played a crucial role in saving Judaism for me. He gathered serious Jews of a liberal persuasion and in a glorious Shabbaton with Mordecai Kaplan and Alan Miller, showed us why Judaism should survive — should evolve and survive.”

Additional works from this fine collection will be auctioned over the months of February and March.

The David Killen Gallery is at 110 West 25th Street. For more information, 646-590-2788 or www.davidkillengallery.com.

Exhibition: Jan 21, 22 & 28, from 9 am till 3:30 pm. Viewing or pick-ups outside these dates by appointment only.
Benefiting the scholarship of students at The Leffell School in Hartsdale New York