 My name is Aaron Goldberg, and Jeff Potash and I are here together. We are the coarchivist of a Havocetic synagogue and the co-founders of the Lost Mule Project, and both currently sitting on the board of the Lost Mule Project. Jeff and I want to first thank everyone in the Chittin County Historical Society for inviting us to share the remarkable odyssey of the Lost Mule with you. Among the many accolades the Lost Mule has received, perhaps the most recent one, which fully encapsulates the Lost Mule's local and international resonance comes from Dr. Peter Monso, the curator of the Smithsonian Institution's American religious history collection. The Lost Mule is a symbol that crosses generations and validates the universal story of communities built by refugees and immigrants in the community. The ability of future generations to learn from this important piece of American history depends on actions taken today. The need to clean and further preserve the mural is urgent. It is essential to safeguarding its legacy. Traditionally, the story of Burlington's Jewish community begins in the decade of the 1880s when a group of recent Lithuanian immigrants joined together to form the Ohavizetic, were lovers of justice congregation in 1885. All were peddlers in the area. Many were related to Nathan Lamport, who had achieved success in the form of a peddler's supply shop near Burlington's hustling but a waterfront, then America's second largest lumber port. Hoping to achieve similar financial success, while effectively recreating a traditional Orthodox Jewish village centered around their synagogue, this small group of Jewish immigrants settled in Burlington's old North End immigrant community. As the village grew and evolved, it expanded its stettled character. I am frustrated because I keep going to the wrong button. My apologies. By 1910, Burlington's Jewish community had grown significantly to an estimated 800 or so residents now served by three synagogues and a new Hebrew free school, Talmatora. Beyond its numbers, the small community boasted a diverse array of essential structures, occupations and services needed to sustain their Orthodox lifestyle. This included a synagogue, a ritual bath, kosher butchers, kosher bakery, dairy, grocery and a Minion, a prayer group of 10 men. In effect, they had transplanted their traditional Eastern European shtetl model in Vermont. And that sustained itself through World War II. The village became known to its residents as Little Jerusalem. Its story is told in loving detail in Vermont's public television's award-winning documentary. Aaron and I served as contributing archivists for this wonderful hour long film, which you can view online at our lostmural.org website or through Vermont Public Television. But let's return to the story of the Lost Mural. While the Lost Mural was painted in 1910, its story begins in 1889 with a schism that erupted within the fledgling Jewish community, then around 150 residents, resulting in the construction of a second synagogue called Chayatum, translated as Lovers of Man, I'm sorry, as Life of Man. But only four years after and situated within 100 yards, built only four years after and situated within 100 yards of the original Ahavazidic synagogue, which was built in 1885, Chayatum resembled a classic Eastern European wooden synagogue with one notable exception. It incorporated a Victorian East-facing apps, which according to Dr. Samuel Gruber of Syracuse University and the International Survey of Jewish Art and Monuments, appears to be a unique feature. The ceiling space above the Holy Ark offered a unique palette for a mural to be painted. In 1910, Chayatum congregation contracted with Benzion Black, a 24-year-old immigrant from Lithuania to add a mural on the ceiling space above the Ark, which houses the Torah scrolls. Black was a professionally trained artist, as well as an established theatrical producer from Covno, also known as Kaunas, Lithuania, a city located 29 miles from Czechoské, a shtetl village where many of the Burlington Jewish community residents came from. Black came to Burlington following his love interest, Rachel Sager, with whom he fell in love with in Lithuania after casting her in a play, notwithstanding the family's apparent dislike of the rakish character, Black and Rachel married in 1912. Tradition says that Black painted the mural in six months directly onto the pre-existing plaster walls and ceiling using an oil-based paint. For painting the front ceiling mural along with traditional prayers on all of the synagogue walls and blue sky and clouds on the building ceiling to create an open air effect, Black was paid the handsome sum of $200, equivalent to just about over $5,800 today. This black and white image that you see depicts the soul and only photograph detailing Benzion Black's artistic work from 1910. Notice above and to the right of the Ark, there's Hebrew lettering from Atovou, the Atovou prayer which means how goodly are thy tents of Jacob, a reference to the artist's painted tent image. Knowing the identity of the mural painters of East European wooden synagogues is very rare, but we know a great deal about the lost murals artist, Benzion Black. A lifelong resident of Burlington until his death in 1972, Black earned his living as a business sign painter, specializing in gold leaf. Many of his commercial signs and designs and logos are still visible in Burlington today. Black was not an active synagogue attendee, rather his passion in Judaism was largely secular and culturally rooted. And his life was spent in working to preserve Yiddish which he advocated to be the language of the Jewish people composing music, poetry and editing a newspaper in Yiddish, producing Yiddish plays and concerts with local community talent while also personally writing, acting, directing and singing. So the slide you see here underscores the fact that in 1939, Chiodom Synagogue closed and the congregation reunited with a Javi Zedek on Archibald Street. Subsequently, the building was sold and converted into business space, most notably as we've identified here, Harry Wiel's carpet gallery. Harry Wiel stripped the entire building of everything literally down to the two by fours to the studs other than the lost mural, which we only recently learned from his son-in-law quote, spoke unquote to the piously Catholic wheel. In 1986, when the lost mural building was sold and plans were made to convert it into an apartment building, Aaron arranged with blacks two daughters to have professional pictures taken of the mural for archival purposes. In addition, with the agreement of the owner at the time, the Francis family, and at the suggestion of the lost mural project's coordinating conservator, Richard Kirschner, then with the Shelbur Museum, a false wall was constructed in front of the mural to allow the future possibility that the mural might survive and later be saved. You'd also like to take a moment to remember George Solomon, who is the person that tips us off that the lost mural was in this building, which was about to go through this apartment conservation, and which led to the false wall being put up in front of the mural. In 2010, the lost mural project arranged with the building's owners to assess the condition of the lost mural. Tenants had unwittingly been living in front of the false wall from 1986 through 2010. A small hole was cut into the apartment's false wall facing east on the second floor apartment to examine a portion of the hidden mural. Lights were then used to assess the lost mural's condition after being hidden for 24 years. What was clear is that the insulation behind the false wall, having been placed too close to the mural surface during the apartment conversion process, had created moisture issues, causing an estimated 10% of the original paint to flake off. Still, the rich colors captured in the 1986 photos were quite visible. Academic research undertaking during the 1990s and the early 2000s highlighted the almost total destruction of East European wooden painted synagogues and the accompanying artistic genre of Jewish, mural, and prayer wall painting. After consultation with museum and historical experts nationwide, these experts employed us in 2010 to make all possible efforts to preserve the lost mural, a remnant and a historical piece of our Jewish heritage, and more broadly, as an international work of immigrant art and culture. In 2012, the building changed hands, reaching out to the new owners, the Offenhearts family, who later donated the mural. The friends of the lost mural were encouraged to raise funds with which to remove the entire false wall and take additional photos and paint samples. Here you see in 2012, we essentially had opened the entire wall and exposed the mural. At the same time, we were reaching, we were securing funds with which to hire Constant Silver, a conservator specializing in art restoration. She began a painstakingly detailed six month project to stabilize the flaking paint on the plaster in anticipation of a future move. As you see on this slide, Connie Silver had to re-adhere almost 70% of the paint which had separated from the plaster. The process involved using a thermos-plastic emulsion adhesive on the backside of the paint and then using pieces of mylar to press the paint chips back into the wooden slat boards which flex like piano keys with the heat and cold. The adhesive could be activated with heat from a tacking iron, which then made these, this cupped paint chips flexible so that they could be gently flattened and re-adhered to the plaster. Quite a, quite an extensive project. While re-attaching the paint to the plaster, Connie Silver began analyzing the paint itself to assess whether any portion of the original mural had subsequently been modified at some later date. She reached out to Susan Buck, a New York paint and finishes conservation analyst. Bucks paint sample analysis confirmed that multiple layers of varnish covering accumulations of soot and grime that had built up over the years as a result of a cold burning furnace that heated the building. These layers of varnish as they had darkened had in fact physically altered the original color scheme of the mural. This image from December, 2014 shows the mural and its painted surface enveloped in a white webbing before cutting of the lost mural from the walls takes place with Connie's initial cleaning of the lost mural at the Hyde Street location during December of 2014. The results were quite unexpected. The dull green interior drapes photographed in 1986 with archival slides re-emerge as a royal blue. So too, purples, pistachio and crimson red colors were also newly exposed. We were all dancing on the tables. In Exodus, chapter 25, verse four, God instructs Moses that before the people left Egypt, the Israelites should accept gifts from the Egyptians. Quote, and these are the gifts that you shall accept from them, gold, silver and copper and blue, purple and crimson yarns, end quote. Blue, purple and crimson red yarns were the most expensive dyed yarns in the ancient world and served as a mark of royalty. These colors were directed by God in the Bible to be used for the tabernacle hangings, coverings for the prayer service utensils and coverings for the priestly vestments. At the recommendation of our art experts and conservators, this blue-green angular right wing on the right side of the mural was separately cut from the wall. We intend to exhibit it as part of our educational exhibit, which will allow visitors to walk around it and see the front paint on the plaster, how thin the plaster is and the structural supports behind it. If you look at the bottom of the image, the missing left, you can see black's signature gold leaf work on the bottom. The missing left side wing did not survive the 1986 conversion of a high-end synagogue building into the apartments. So how do you move a 22-foot by 11-foot mural? The first step, taken in October of 2014, consisted of building a temporary shelter around the portion of the building, of the apartment building containing the mural. In part, that reflected concerns raised by Rick Kirschner regarding significant variations between the extreme winter outside temperatures and the heated indoor apartment temperature, potentially causing more cracking during the cold winter months and the possibility of extending or creating further damage to the mural. By November of 2014, the second floor extension of the temporary building had been constructed. Work had begun on a removable roof attached with screws. During December of 2014, third floor roof trusses were installed with beams. The temporary structure was completed in January of 2015 with the slate roof of the building's apps now encased within the temporary structure. Work could continue during the coldest winter months. In March of 2015, the entire slate roof was carefully removed. Each slate numbered in the underlying wooden roof at the rear of the loss mural was exposed. April 2015 was a busy month. First, a renowned conservator, Norman Weiss from Columbia University was brought in to apply a special consolidant in the rear of the mural. You're looking at the back of the mural now. To strengthen the little aft board slats behind the plaster. Extra framing was also installed against building support toward the back. In 1986, even before the mural was hidden behind a false wall, architect Marcel Boden of South Burlington, Vermont, first conceived that the lost mural could be encased in a frame and lifted out of its old home. The top design is the plan drawn by reliance steel based upon the one-of-a-kind engineering specifications of Bob Neld and Oren Gutman of Engineering Ventures, Inc. Looking at the top plan, the smallest panel forms the top of the steel tent-like frame. If you were to stand within this piece, noted with the red arrow, you would be standing at the highest peak of the steel frame tent of the lost mural and looking forwards and downwards at the three side slopes, sloping away from you and in front of you. The bottom design is showing the rear of the steel frame with its steel support rods, which screw into the iron beams installed in its new location ceiling and with the letter X-bracing rods, which are on the rear of the steel frame structure. You can see the outline of the tent shape of the lost mural in the old building behind the two lines marking the X-bracing. The steel frame is actually welded in place within the temporary shelter built on Hyde Street against additional plywood support, which is applied to the rear of the mural to increase the stiffness of the mural plaster on the lab and prepare it for the construction of the unique multi-purpose steel frame. The same steel frame is then used for stabilization, lifting and extracting the mural, its transportation, landing the mural at its new home, pushing it into its new law into the lobby and lifting it again for reinstallation. By the end of 2015, the lost mural is framed within steel with all steel beams welded into place and with additional welded pieces applied at all the joints. Holes are pre-drilled into the steel frame to insert the wheels after the mural is brought to its new location. A steel beam and floor is also added to the mural to prevent the three interior sides from moving forward or sideways. The steel and wooden frame is designed by the engineers so the mural will move less than one hundredth of an inch during the entire process of relocating it, moving it and reinstalling it. Now the fun begins as the lengthy plans prepared by the architects, engineers, contractors, steel workers, carpenters, painters and crane engineers begins to unfold. At Ohobizetic Synagogue, work was undertaken to construct suspended iron beams in the ceiling to hold the mural aloft. To accommodate the size of the steel frame mural, the entire front entryway of Ohobizetic was removed and a wooden landing pad installed. The entry doors and windows will subsequently be replaced with special UV glass lighting and shades. May 6th, 2015, moving day. Early in the morning, the contractors unscrewed the temporary roof and a 50 ton crane carefully lifts and deposits it onto a large roller at street level where it is then moved away from the building. Remember, the temporary portable roof had to be put back on top of the building immediately after the loss mural was removed from it. Next, crews inside the second floor of the temporary shelter worked with the rigors to connect the crane cables and belts through the carefully designed fitted holes of the steel mural that would secure the loss mural when it was lifted and moved. With bated breath, we watched as a 7,500 pound mural within its protective steel case and frame was lifted out of the building and deposited onto a flatbed truck. The red arrows show the dimensions of the loss mural while it is being lifted, floating in the air during the moving day. Only afterwards, after it was put on the truck, did we realize that we've been waiting 29 years for this moment to happen. To add needed support, the mural was wrapped in layers from the front and the back prior to its move. The actual plaster of the mural is located behind the wrapped black cushion shown here on top of the white air cushion. Additional supportive layers also were installed in front of the plaster mural and these include the following, moving from the surface of the mural outwards. A layer of silk, a webbing material, a waxy layer, the wrapped black cushion, a white air cushion, plywood boards and the steel tension rods. Once secured with the straps on the truck, the mural begins its historic three-tenths-of-a-mile journey to its new home, passing by the original Havocetic Synagogue in the process. While the transport truck is moving up the hill, the large crane is moved into position along a temporary sloped gravel road constructed adjacent to and next to and in front, I'm sorry, constructed adjacent to the landing pad and in front of its new home building, which was constructed earlier at the front of the Synagogue entryway. Once again, the 50-ton crane carefully lifts the mural, this time from the bed of the truck and delivers it onto the landing pad. Then wheels were attached to the steel frame to accommodate the final 50-foot move. With literally tenths-of-an-inch clearance, the mural is pushed by hand across the landing pad and into the synagogue lobby. The following week, the steel and wooden stabilizing flooring was removed. Once inside the synagogue, with the flooring removed, the now 6,500-pound lost mural was hand-pulled by chains and pulleys up to 11 feet, its original height in its former home, and it was then attached to the five suspension rods extending from the steel frame into the specially-installed I-beam. Here you see the mural in 1986 and in 2014, while it was still in the High Street building. So what do the mural symbols and colors mean? The symbolism of the lost mural incorporates a number of primary symbols of Judaism. At the center are the Ten Commandments, the decalogue, that sit on the throne of Solomon, which is described in the Book of Kings. The commandments are supported on either side by rampant lions, also familiar from both heraldic and Jewish tradition, as the lions of Judah. Above the commandments appears a crown and a ribbon. The two Hebrew words on the ribbon can be translated as khetr Torah, crown of the Torah. The crown of the Torah also reflects the presence of God as further captured in the sun's rays. But the artist had two additional side panels with which to work. And this is where Benzion Black added his own unique style and biblical interpretation. Once immediate attention on the side panels focuses on the base of the four large marbleized columns that draw your eye from the bottom to the top of the mural. The imagery of the four columns is a reference to the original temple in Jerusalem. Suddenly, as Dr. Samuel Gruber has observed, the theme of the lost mural becomes clear. With its newly bright red and purple curtains, as shown in the 2014 slide, and the four columns substituting for the four biblically described acacia tent poles, the lost mural depicts the tent of the tabernacle as described in the Bible. The mobile tent of the tabernacle is the portable sanctuary tent built by the Israelites in accordance with God's specific instructions after they left Egypt. The tabernacle was considered to be the earthly dwelling place of God inside of the sanctuary tent within the camp of the Israelites. Exodus chapter 25, verses eight through nine. The book of Exodus also tells us that the tent of the tabernacle is partitioned into two sections. The first is the outside entrance called the holy place, which houses an outside altar, tables and utensils. As depicted by Benzion Black here, one walks between the outer courtyard columns, seeing window portals looking outside using a Trump-Loy effect. The book of Numbers, chapter four, verses six through 12, specifies the outside space be separated from the inner holy of holy's area, containing the ark with the 10 commandments by royal blue and purple curtains, as shown here in the 2014 slide. In Black's work, you move from the outer tent courtyard wrapped in the red curtains through both the royal set of curtains and the royal blue set of curtains and the shimmering purple fabric curtains into this most sacred space called the holy of holy's. While in biblical times, only the high priest was allowed entry into this most sacred space. It appears that Black, a recent immigrant, may be suggesting that all people are welcome to enter the tent of the Tabernacles. After the 2015 miraculous move, initial cleaning continues for a short time period. The new paint sampling tests reveal even more wonderful and vibrant color clues under the layers of varnish, charcoal, dust and dirt. In November of 2019, after convening a distinguished group of museum experts from Washington, Philadelphia, as well as Vermont, we were advised that a full cleaning of the mural needed to be our immediate priority. After using the required chemicals to stabilize the paint and accommodate the mural's move, the top layers of discolored varnish had been hardening at an accelerating pace. Richard Kirschner advised the conference attendees that further delays in cleaning the mural would render it impossible to remove potentially intractable varnish without endangering the underlying paint. In August of 2020, after raising the needed funds, we hired conservator Emily Phillips to undertake a 100 hour experiment to identify a few small areas of the mural with which to clean, infill and repaint. For the purpose of timing such work as we began to contemplate successive project phases, full cleaning and full restoration. One area of concentration was the lion of Judah on the right side of the mural. What amazed us was Emily's discovery of black's nuanced use of multiple shades of coloring that exposed the animal's powerful strength and musculature. So too, shadows lost in the darkened varnish now revealed black's intent in creating three-dimensional depth of space never before seen. Really quite remarkable before and after. A second area of focus involved the right side panel column pedestal and the bottom portion of drapery hanging alongside it. Again, the end result yielded elegant soft colors of drapery that seemed to leap off the palette together with a three-dimensional recessed stone pedestal that is both realistic and substantial. Remember this picture from 1986 before the lost mural was hidden away? No one at that time realized that hidden beneath the darkened areas and darkened layers of varnish and grime were vibrant light greens, crimson red tablets with silver lettering for the 10 commandments, bright yellows and royal blues and purple curtains all waiting to be revealed. The lost mural's palette contains a full spectrum of lively and joyful colors, which speak to Ben Zion's artistry, creating a time portal which reopens the centuries-old Eastern European tradition of synagogue wall paintings grounded in biblical references and the enduring spirit of immigrant hope. A former resident of Kavanaugh, Lithuania in the 1920s, Dr. Joel Elkes, who we met in Florida, told us that the vibrancy of black's colors captured the vitality of Jewish life in Lithuania. For centuries before World War II and the Holocaust, Lithuania was a major center of Jewish culture and had been a joyful center of Jewish life, prayer, polymetic studies, and Jewish arts, literature, music, poetry and theater. In 2014, prior to his death, Dr. Elkes remind us that saving these colors was tantamount to preserving, quote, the magical world of my earliest childhood. By March of 2021, we had successfully raised the required funds and in April commenced the long-awaited phase one full cleaning project. Here you see the impressive three-story scaffolding that was constructed to give our two conservators, Constance Silver and Jennifer Baker, direct access to the entire mural. A critical first step that needed to be undertaken, both prior to and repeatedly during the cleaning itself involved taking paint samples from different areas of the mural and sending them to Amy Ives Cole, an historical paint and conservator analyst at Sutherland Consulting in Maine. As you can see from one of her reports, analysis of paint samples offered definitive cross sections revealing layers of material that had accumulated on top of the original paint and glazes used by Benzion Black. Notice, and I'm pointing you to the right side and hoping that you can read a bit of this to identify what she's seeing. Working from the bottom upward, each of the four set paint samples shown here basically reveals a base white color, some kind of original paint pigmentation, in some cases additional glazes that Benzion Black applied, and then in all instances, a layers of additional varnish embedded with dirt, dust and grime. So these wonderful samples exposed beneath the varnish, the original coloration scheme. It is important to remember prior to the full cleaning that while some portions of the mural revealed vibrant colors exposed through partial cleaning, the mural as a whole still remained largely one-dimensional in its muted use of color and shadowing. This slide offers a visual perspective of the thinness of the plaster layer situated on top of the lat boards at its thickest against the lat board on the right side of the image in the bottom corner. The plaster was perhaps three quarters of an inch thick. And as you progress upward, probably more towards one half an inch at the upper reaches of the right side of the mural. And what you can't say in the middle and toward the left side is the fact that the plaster thins and is generally in those areas one sixteenth of an inch thick or perhaps even less reminds you of the fragility of this remarkable piece located to the right side of the lion's head or areas indicated with yellow and red dots indicating they're situated on the light pistachio sunray and the light purple curtain to the right of the lion. If you can see those little dots looking from top to bottom within each area one can see the effect of cleaning in their multiple cleanings of the darkened varnish which basically removes at varying points in time differing amounts or apply different levels of solvent with the effect of lightening up that the pistachio and purple colors to their original form. The image on the left of your screen shows the cleaned 10 commandments today. The 1986 image on the right shows the darker defined line between the two tablets and the shadowing curvature on the bottom of the two tablets all of which will be restored by glazing the bottom areas of the tablets by the next team of conservators using the information is noted in the 1986 slide. This is the left panel. Here the roundness of the columns and the shadowing effect of the column bases and the central bay located between them and along the curtain edges show additional depth of field achieved by the Trump loyal effect utilized by Benzine black to achieve the three dimensionality for the areas located to both inside and outside the 10 to the Tabernacles. The left image of this right panel is the Los Merlin April, 2021 showing how the varnishes darken the colors. If you compare the same areas within both the left image from April, 2021 and the right image from September, 2021 you can see the remarkably lightened and vivid colors such as the pistachio green sun rays, the purple curtain and the brown columns with their marbleized white and black paint swirls all clearly pictured here after the removal of the darkened brown varnish layers. And I just wanna speak for a moment to the paint testing that has been being done throughout this. So Amy Cole Ives is telling the conservators with each color and with each shade of the color how much material is on top of the original color so that they do not go too far down and eliminate any of the original color. By September, 2021, the 10 commandments are read with silver letters, the lions are golden, the jewels within the crown are shimmering and the throne of Solomon is orange. The base of the throne is now green all the swirling at the bottom and is clearly defined with the three dimensional recessed internal area revealed by the different shades of green and designs and shadows depicted within the throne of Solomon. Also notice the light source emerging from the sun even more intensely with the white and blue colors bleeding into the pistachio colored rays and the red and orange colors bleeding into the yellow colored rays within the top portion of each sunray. Phase one of the cleaning project started in the middle of April, 2021. By June of 2021, the lost mural was 40% cleaned. This is an interesting image. This is a composite photo taken on July 15th, 2021 and a composite photo actually flattens the mural image by seeming five photos together. The conservators are then able to utilize the image to investigate and determine the visual depths of the paint colors by actually zooming into the interior of any area and color with their computer. This archival slide from 1986 highlights another piece of restoration work that will be completed in the next stage. This phase two full restoration of the lost murals missing paint and colors projected to start in early 2022. Notice in 1986, the original green border with decorative curtain balls painted along the right edge of the mural indicated with the red arrow. There was a similar border on the left edge of the mural but that was lost during the 1986 building reconstruction that occurred shortly after this picture was taken. Together, those two external green edges framed the lost mural and defined the outermost tent sides with the green borders. Now, unfortunately, the remaining right border plaster pieces which have been saved are incomplete and far too fragile to reinstall on the mural itself. This is another composite picture photo taken in September of 2021 after the cleaning project was completed. Its detail will allow our conservators to zoom in on different areas and compare the multicolored hues and shading within each area or symbol. As well, it reveals a white section at the top of the mural. Benzion Black originally painted the building ceiling located above and in front of the mural with blue sky and white clouds to create an open air effect. The restoration phase will include recreating a small portion of that ceiling in this white top area using the blue and white sky samples from a few surviving plaster ceiling pieces that we still have. Here you see the newly cleaned and radiant mural as it currently appears after the summer's successful cleaning process. It's occurred on time and thankfully within budget. You can also see the left and right side wooden roof struts upon which the replicated green side borders will be mounted as our conservators and art experts have strongly recommended in order to present the lost mural as originally envisaged and painted by Benzion Black. With the phase one cleaning project finished in late August of 2021, fundraising continues to raise sufficient funds for the second phase, which is the full restoration of the lost mural projected to begin in January of 2022 and to be completed by the end of April of 2022, assuming that we are successful in raising the funds. That full restoration will include in filling all of the portions of lost paint that you continue to see here and basically having skilled artists come in and recreate the paint so that the mural will be literally, will look as it did when it opened in 1910. The second phase, as I mentioned to you is we're hoping to get it undertaken shortly. We've already raised $90,000 toward the projected cost and we're optimistic and excited at the prospect that in 2022, we will share with you a completely restored mural. With that, Aaron and I thank you for allowing us to share our passion, our story with you and the mural thanks to the Chittinous County Historical Society for inviting us. We hope you'll come and visit the mural. We are actually doing showings on Sunday afternoons and look to our website for more information. At this juncture, thankfully we're done and we'll turn the floor over to you folks and ask that if there are any questions that you'd like us to answer, please share and we'll do our best. Just wanted to comment that the colors that the new conservator team will be working with are based upon the original color palette of Benzion Black as established by all of the paint testing and sampling that has been done by Susan Buck and Amy Cole Ives and they will also be based, of course, in terms of the location on the 1986 archival slides. Thank you. Sarah, please. So I was wondering how the whole pandemic schedule has played into this work. I don't know if you're having services back in the synagogue or if you did last year or did this open up a positive side of the pandemic by allowing your workers to be there in the building working way on their own? The term, again, we use the term odyssey because we see the mural as being part of this long journey that will continue on long after we're gone. One of the other terms that we love using is serendipity. It actually worked to our advantage. The synagogue was closed. And with the synagogue closed, undertaking the cleaning, which consisted of using a considerable number of solvents with extensive smells and the like, could be done with relative ease because the sanctuary and lobby and lounge could be effectively closed off from the rest of the synagogue. So it happened that it's been very, very helpful to us. The synagogue is in the process of reopening. They'd like their lobby back at this juncture. We're just pleading with them to be patient and we keep reassuring them that their frustrations will pay out in the long term. Right. I just want to add that while the lobby is sealed from the rest of the building, there is an access from the main sanctuary. And we built a tunnel which accesses both the, from the main sanctuary. It accesses the small chapel if you've been in the Hava Zedek and the front offices. So the entire building is still fully accessible to the congregation as needed, with the exception of the lobby area. And even with the proposed restoration while the lobby remains closed, we are working with the different conservation teams regarding the timing of the restoration. And it's certainly, the timing will certainly be enhanced and shortened by having the lobby closed for the time periods that they're on site. More questions, please. We've answered everyone's questions. We've put people- Yeah, I'm sorry. I have a question if I could. This is Howard Siever. I guess I can't get the video on here. You're fine, Howard. Please. Oh, I guess we do. Okay. Oh, perfect. This is Howard Siever. One of you mentioned earlier on that there was a website or something like that that told the story of what you called Little Jerusalem of the early Jewish community in Burlington. Yes. Is that so? And if so, could you give us a reference to that? Yeah. Yes, it's, if you go to either ourlostmirror.org site and you then key in, you'll see the film called Little Jerusalem. You can also go to the Vermont Public Television's website and go to their archives and just type in Little Jerusalem. And the film will also come up there. It's a one hour long documentary that was produced by Vermont Public Television. And Jeff and I were the contributing archivists for it. The producer is Dorothy- Dickey. And who did a wonderful job on the production. And as you saw in the slide, the production won the 2013 Richard O'Hathaway award for the state of Vermont. So the name of the production is Little Jerusalem? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And again, lostmirror.org contains all of the different stories on Benzion Black, The Origins, just about anything and everything we could put in there. So please come visit. Yeah, it sounded fascinating. Great. Thank you for coming. I just wanted to thank you for the presentation. It was wonderful. It was informative. It's beautiful to see the before and after in the history of the restoration, not only the history of the mural, but bringing it back to life as well is amazing. Thank you. And we're off to, we've just been so well received by the Vermont Council and the arts, the Vermont Humanities. We're off to present to the humanities group and the theme, and it's a sincere one. And I hope it's communicated to each and every one of you is that this mural belongs to all Vermonters. It's really a statement about an immigrant group who carried, transplanted something that was very meaningful to them. The Vermont historian, I'm real sensitive to the fact that all too little of our immigrant past is clear. And in Burlington, as we reinvigorate, I mean, every generation brings in a new group of immigrants in many instances, refugees, the story is constantly retold and it constantly regenerates and supports the Vermont story. So this is one of those dimensions, one of those pieces that we're hoping that kind of starts the ball rolling against others thinking about immigrant relics and treasures, that we should all celebrate collectively. So thank you, thank you. One of the satisfying parts of the cleaning phase was that the entire community, the Vermont Historic Preservation Community and its associations and councils and foundations all have supported the cleaning of the lost mural. And we really made extraordinary and gained extraordinary ground in the 2021 calendar year as a result of that support. Great, and I saw another hand somewhere. Yeah, and I, as the program chairman, I do want to say thank you. And I also want to encourage everybody to visit and see in person the mural I did last weekend. And it was astonishing. It is extraordinary just in terms of its grandeur and size. And again, one of our favorite quotes that came out of the Jewish Museum, the director of the Jewish Museum in Philadelphia, he said, this is a Holocaust survivor. I mean, you cannot, as the ambassador from Lithuania who came to visit us last month said, you can't go to Lithuania to see this. It's gone of the thousands of synagogues and the murals that once were all pervasive across the landscape of Eastern Europe, this is it and of all places, Burlington, Vermont. So it is a treasure. Well, I want to ask you, Erin, to please quote what you said last weekend about how many hundreds of synagogues, wooden and murals were in the one city in Lithuania because it was astonishing to me. And also the population of Jewish people that were in that city and what remains today. Right, so before World War II and the Holocaust, there were over a quarter of a million Jews in Lithuania. Proper and after the Holocaust, there were under somewhere between three and 4,000 people in Lithuania who were Jewish. The largest Lithuanian Jewish communities are now in London and in Chicago. In Lithuania itself, the Lithuanian ambassador has advised us that there were over 600 wooden synagogues that have been identified. We don't know how many of those had murals, well, painted wall murals, and we also don't know the identity of any of those artists and none of them were photographed, but none of those are in existence. So the lost mural, the 1910 lost mural is really a clear example of what and the only example we have of what was in all of Eastern Europe for centuries. There probably were well into the thousands, including Lithuania's 600 and then across Eastern Europe. In terms of the statistics you're seeking for Vilnius and Vilnius before World War II, in the ghetto, there were, which is a cobblestone area. You can imagine the downtown Burlington area, say the top, say the surrounding 15 blocks around Church Street or 12 blocks around Church Street and you imagine those as being cobblestone. You had 101 synagogues. They were literally on every single corner and in the middle of blocks, they were everywhere. And after the siege in Vilnius, one remained. All of the synagogues inside the ghetto were destroyed and the only synagogue that remained outside of the ghetto was the one that the Nazis occupied in preparation for their attack on Vilnius and the Vilnius ghetto. So there aren't any that survive within the actual Jewish ghetto in Vilnius itself. Thank you, Aaron. This is another reason why Dr. Peter Monso of the Smithsonian and Dr. Joshua Perlman of the National Museum of American Jewish History and Dr. Samuel Gruber of the International Survey of Jewish Art and Monuments are all hailing the lost mural as a universal symbol of both Jewish culture and heritage but also of immigrant culture and heritage. And as Jeff was noting, there aren't many of those that are preserved and they all need to be identified as part of our immigrant heritage, which we're hoping the lost mural project will become an advocate and a proponent of that type of a project in terms of our educational exhibit or educational initiative, which we hope to include all of Burlington's immigrant groups and their artistic heritage and immigrant heritage. Let me jump in, so Sarah, I saw you and then I saw Howard, so Sarah, follow up. Well, not so much a follow-up, I was wanting to really give the floor to Sherry Bigelow, who had her hand up a couple of times, but while I do have the floor, I'll just comment that I'm thinking back to those original wooden synagogues back in Lithuania. Stylistically, what century would those original murals there have been produced in? I mean, we're talking about an early 20th century artistic effort, which was reaching back to the past, but still it was not 16th century. So I'm just by way of comparison, hoping you'll comment on that after you listen to Sherry. Oh, many of these in Eastern Europe were actually done as early as the 1500s and 1600s. The Balkan, the Lithuanian area and Poland and Germany, we think were done in the 1600s and 1700s. And just for what it's worth, I mean, it's fascinating, I was unfamiliar with this, but the Jews come to Lithuania, they're invited into Lithuania in the 14th century. And so there's a 600 year period during which, they are very highly supported and encouraged. They perform a variety of roles for the country. And so as a consequence, I mean, they tend to do fairly well for themselves, which is why you see such a large population as Aaron described. Anyway, I'm talking too long. I just want to point out that, Sarah, that the Jewish community starts to flourish in Eastern Europe and Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Eastward after the expulsions from Western Europe. So those expulsions take place in the late 1400s and only 1500s. And, but as Jeff said, the kings and princes of the Lithuanian and Baltic countries are all inviting the Jews in and giving them complete freedom of worship in order to, and that's when you see this enormous explosion of Jewish art and culture take place across Eastern Europe. So, Alyssa, there you are. Please, your question. Not Mila, yes. It was Sherry. Oh, Sherry, I'm sorry. I'm looking at Melissa, who's next to you in the box and I'm sorry, you get old, you do these things. Sherry, please. Well, first of all, I want to say congratulations on pulling off such a challenging preservation project. Amazing, plus the amazing history. My question is what, did you have a hard time getting people to come and work on, you know, the paint parts of the conservation and will they be trying to like replicate the old paint or will it be a new chemical type paint that will be matching the old paint? So, we've been very lucky since 1986, the original team, which was myself and Jeff and engineering ventures and Great Northern and construction and Ray O'Connor have been able to be working together with Marcel Bodin and we did get a conservator who worked with us named Constance Silver who worked with us between 2013 when we started cleaning the mural through the move in 2015. Emily Phillips then started working on the mural to do the testing 2020 and Constance Silver and Jennifer Baker then worked all through 2021 to bring us to this current stage. We have three teams that are now bidding on the next phase of the restoration process in terms of the paint that will be used and whether it's being and how it's being done. So, all of the paint testing and sampling that has been done both by Amy Cole Ives and her teacher in New York, Susan Buck has shown us the actual original color palette of Benzion Black. So, the original color palette is going to be used for both the fill-in. So, they will do a fill-in of gray paint and then they will actually color using the original colors. The only parts that are being replicated are being replicated from existing samples and that includes the green borders that are on the left and right and we have those pieces there. We have five surviving pieces of that plaster which show the colors and show the size of the actual curtain balls. So, the conservators will be able to first clean one of those samples and then replicate that color and then make the two side borders and then those will be reattached on the wooden roof beams themselves. And to your, yeah, but to your point, yeah. Then we have a sample of the blue sky also that'll be a top. And to your point, Sherry, the beauty of all of that conservation work that Aaron's describing is that we know what the actual paint is. And so, it will be the exact, it will be an oil-based copy of the same coloration scheme. And in looking with those, reaching out to those three groups, each has expert artists that do this for a living. So, we're not taking any chances. Yeah. If you just stopped at the cleaning of it, it's still such an astounding piece. It's, thank you for all the work you've done here. And we had, you know, it's fascinating because we've had so many remarkable visitors. We've had, you know, some real dignitaries. The person who comes to mind was a Holocaust artist who presented at the Fleming Museum. Aaron, his name. Samuel Bach. Samuel Bach. He came and he said, don't touch any of it because it really reflects, I mean, it captures the Holocaust feel that it's incomplete, that it's, you know, there's a sorrow attached to it in its incompleteness. And countering that, you know, was the argument of Joel Elke's, the joyfulness that these people wanted. I mean, this was their, this was the genre. You know, it wasn't gold and silver. It wasn't, you know, this was the aesthetic that when they walked into their home, you know, their house of prayer, they wanted to be greeted by glorious and bright colors. And so we've opted for that, just to honor that tradition. Just to add to the discussion on that point, the consensus of the conservators at this point and our coordinating observer, Richard Kirschner, who's been doing these surveys of conservators at various conferences that have been held and at lectures that he's spoken at, is that since we have all of, we've, and Richard Kirschner was the former chief conservator of the, and curator of collections at the Sheldon Museum, and Rick has said that the consensus is pretty overwhelming that since we have all of the documentation in terms of photos, slides, video, time lapse and drone photography, and since we are able to replicate large photographs of the existing image as it is now, that since the damage was caused by man in 1986 with the installation of the insulation, which resulted in the water damage, that it is appropriate from under the conservators code of ethics for us to complete the mural to show what it looked like in 1910. Howard, I saw you had a hand, and I'm gonna suggest maybe one other after that. I'm sensitive to the fact that we've been at you for an hour and it's probably time for a brief. Just a very quick question. I think one of you mentioned early on that there was a way to go in and physically see the mural where it is. I think you mentioned something like Sundays. How would you, how would one go about doing that? So we will be posting dates that we're taking Sunday or we're doing Sunday public viewings. They will be on the website and we'll notify the Chittin County Historical Society when that's happening also. Yeah, and if you saw our email addresses, I mean, just contact us as well. I mean, we'll. But it would be so, it would be a specific time. They are specific times. Yes, they are specific time periods. We are asking that people sign up for time slots and we're bringing in, due to COVID restrictions, we're bringing in five people at a time into the mural room in the last mural lobby and we will rotate people in and out every 15 or 20 minutes. And we'll get you in. I mean, we can also, we can also, if you know, it's simply by emailing us, people can set up private tours with us. Aaron and I can, we have access to the building at all times. So it doesn't need to just be Sundays. Great, with that, I'm looking at all of you. And again, just want to express tremendous gratitude. Thank you so much for having us. We deeply appreciated this. Please, please spread the link to help people to help the project. Thank you so much. Thank you both. Thank you again. Very much.