Lost Mural Project
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The Lost Mural was painted in 1910 in a Burlington, VT, immigrant synagogue. In 2015 it was moved to
11/13/2024
Ohavi Zedek Synagogue and the Lost Mural Project will host a concert featuring saxophonist Marty Fogel and his quintet, Thread of Blue. You can purchase tickets here! https://ohavizedek.shulcloud.com/form/marty-fogel-thread-of-blue-2024.html
The Lost Mural Project expresses its appreciation to the following sponsors of this musical performance: Michael & Marjorie Lipson; Frank & Ducky Donath
09/12/2023
As this season of renewal dawns, remember our loved ones, their courage, and their journeys. Help us celebrate the colors of our traditions and perpetuate a vital window showcasing artistic, cultural, and immigrant freedom: the Lost Mural.
May the new year be blessed with art, freedom, peace, sustenance, and wonder.
Please consider making a gift today. https://www.lostmural.org/make-a-donation
02/22/2023
The Lost Mural Project partnered with the Burlington High School English/Civics 9th Grade teachers for a memorable educational event, held Feb. 14 and 15.
The 240 BHS 9th grade humanities students visited the Lost Mural as part of the school's "Resistance Day of Learning Field Trip." The students toured the Lost Mural and listened to speakers who shared their experiences as minorities and refugees and their journeys to Vermont. The speakers discussed actions taken in the face of cultural erasure of their own heritage.
Speakers included: the Rev. Dr. Arnold. O. Thomas, pastor, Good Shepard Lutheran Church, Jericho, moderator of Racism in America Forums, first Black denominational leader in Vermont; Gordana Pobric, BHS Teacher from Bosnia; Migmar Tsering, musician from Tibet; Noor Bulle, BHS Teacher from Somalia and BHS Class of 2008; Jeff Potash, co-founder & director, Lost Mural Project, BHS Class of 1972; Aaron Goldberg, co-founder, director & president, Lost Mural Project, BHS Class of 1974.
The students also viewed artistic and historical objects and listened to music imbued with tradition and ritual that symbolized
the survival of community traditions. Like the Lost Mural itself, these collective objects and music have survived despite the ravages of war, genocide, and intentional acts of destruction meant to erase people's collective and community members.
The Lost Mural Project offers its heartfelt appreciation to those who have created this program, a partnership designed and implemented by the BHS Teachers and the Lost Mural Project.
2023 has been designated by the Lost Mural Project as the year of expanding its educational mission within the State of Vermont and worldwide.
Donations can be made to support the educational mission of the Lost Mural Project: https://www.lostmural.org/donate
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” - Elie Wiesel
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This quote from Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of acclaimed memoir, "Night," was on four posters, hanging in a Pennsylvania school. The principal told the librarian THIS MONTH to remove them for violating a policy banning educators from "advocacy activities."
After a social media outcry, the school district reversed the decision, issuing a statement that said: “The district apologizes for any hurt or concerns this has caused, particularly for those in the Jewish community.”
This alarming story, record-breaking number of antisemitic incidents, and surveys showing “worrying lack of basic Holocaust knowledge” only serve to emphasize the essential work of organizations around the globe dedicated to education related to the Holocaust.
The Lost Mural is committed to this vital and important work, too. The mural is a rare survivor of a folk-art form, once prevalent in wooden shuls across Eastern Europe, that was nearly obliterated during the Holocaust. Our educational mission is to act -- to interpret the mural in cultural and historic context, expanding knowledge and understanding.
“Action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all,” Wiesel said in his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
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The Lost Mural’s Story
Today the Lost Mural lives in the public atrium of Burlington’s Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, but its first home was the Chai Adam synagogue on Hyde St, in the North End of Burlington, Vermont, where it was painted in 1910 by the Lithuanian artist Ben Zion Black. In 1986, the mural was “lost” when the synagogue building was renovated into apartments and the mural was closed off behind a false wall, where it lived for over 25 years. In 2015, it was moved to its current location - a project that won awards for historic preservation, engineering, and art conservation.
This rare artwork is representative of a vibrant and colorful decorative tradition present in hundreds of Eastern European synagogue interiors in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Lost Mural has been recognized as one of only a handful of remaining examples of this joyful art form, described by experts as a “Holocaust Survivor” and “accidental survivor of an otherwise vanished past.” Today, the Friends of the Lost Mural are working actively to have the mural cleaned and restored to its original vibrant appearance.
The Friends of the Lost Mural's mission is to share and celebrate the Jewish immigrant story of this historic synagogue mural, and in so doing extend the visual metaphor of Ben Zion Black's mural by making “everyone welcome under the tent.”
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Address
188 N Prospect Street
Burlington, VT
05401
