Jewish artist Tobi Kahn crosses religious lines
As Passover approached, Tobi Kahn worked in his studio in Queens, New York, putting washes of glaze on a silver-painted peg, a miniature sculpture soon to join 48 others.
The 49 pegs fit into a two-foot-high case. Hang the case on your wall, and you have a sculpture that evokes the grids of modernist art. Remove or add a peg daily, and you’re counting the Omer, a Jewish practice marking the days from Passover until the festival of Shavuot, which marks Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. This year it falls on June 11.
Kahn’s first Omer counter hangs in New York’s Jewish Museum. His clients sign an agreement saying that they will remove and replace the pegs once a year. But not all of them are Jewish.
