From an early age he listened to the Western Classical collection of his father.
The museum, which opened in 1993, holds the Western Hemisphere's largest collection of research material on the Holocaust.
In 1970, a museum was built on the site to house the Western collection as well as provide an educational experience for visitors.
The exhibition at the institute tracks the development of Arab sciences through a series of fine objects, many, as it happens, borrowed from Western collections.
Mr. Koenig, who said it was rare to find a complete mask like this in Western collections, called the mask "a sure hit with kids."
The Met's catalogue steers clear of awkward questions about how these magnificent pictures got to Western collections.
This show will include works from Soviet museums and private collections, as well as that gathered from Western collections.
These texts, with the translations of the Eastern councils, passed into the Western canonical collections.
From the collection of Dionysius Exiguus they passed into many Western collections, though their authority was never on one level.
The museum's curator, Jack Becker, has arranged the 26 paintings borrowed from many Western collections into a series of rooms focusing on a particular theme.