Forgotten Temple Mural Found in Vermont Carpet Store

In 1910, Lithuanian artist Ben Zion Black painted an extravagant floor-to-ceiling mural in the Chai Adam synagogue in Burlington, Vermont. The building was eventually converted into apartment units and much of the painting was destroyed during renovations. Now, a century later, the Burlington Jewish community is determined to preserve the artwork, which may be the only surviving example of a long tradition of Jewish art that was almost entirely obliterated during the Holocaust.

Burlington native Aaron Goldberg first spotted the Lost Shul Mural—as the Vermont masterpiece has been nicknamed—in the 1970s on the back wall of a carpet store that had once been a synagogue. Goldberg’s family was among the mostly Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who settled in the area in the late 1800s. In a new NPR story, Goldberg recalls admiring the painting as a child: the rays of sunlight, a crown hovering above a tablet with the Ten Commandments, and a throne supported by two lions of Judah.

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From Tablet Magazine