On the recordMay 26, 2022
I am proud to recognize the Ohavi Zedek community and former Vermont Governor and U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Madeleine Kunin for their efforts to preserve and restore the Shul Mural. Painted in 1910 by Ben Zion Black, the mural was commissioned by Burlington's Lithuanian Jewish community, who had come to Vermont from the town of Kovno and its environs to escape Russian pogroms. The immigrants founded the Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in 1885 and the Chai Adam Synagogue 4 years later. It was at the latter synagogue that the Shul Mural was painted. Stretching from floor to ceiling, it depicts the Tent of the Tabernacle, as described in the Book of Numbers. The style in which it was painted was well-known to the members of Chai Adam, as it could be found in synagogues throughout Eastern Europe. Now, the Shul Mural is one of the few remaining examples of this style of painting in the world. The works which inspired it were destroyed, as part of the burning of synagogues and the extermination of millions of Eastern European Jews by the Nazis, including the decimation of Lithuania's Jewish population. In Burlington, the Ohavi Zedek and Chai Adam synagogues merged in 1939. Chai Adam was sold. The building went through multiple uses and in 1986 the mural was covered with a false wall to protect it at the urging of Jeffrey Potash, a historian and Ohavi Zedek's archivist. In 2012, the building was sold once again.…
