Palestinian costumes
Encyclopedia
Palestinian costumes are the traditional clothing
worn by Palestinians
. Foreign travelers to Palestine
in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women. Many of the handcrafted garments were richly embroidered and the creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in the lives of the region's women.
Most experts in the field trace the origins of Palestinian costumes to ancient times, though there are no surviving clothing artifacts
from this early period against which the modern items might be definitively compared. Influences from the various empire
s to have ruled Palestine, such as Ancient Egypt
, Ancient Rome
and the Byzantine empire
, among others, have been documented by scholars largely based on the depictions in art and descriptions in literature of costumes produced during these times.
Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian costumes reflected a woman's economic status, whether married or single, and the town or district of origin, and a knowledgeable observer could glean such information from the fabric
, colours, cut
, and embroidery
motifs (or lack thereof) in a given woman's apparel. Dresses generally had a loose-fitting cut that allowed for considerable freedom of movement. Decorative embellishments supplied a substantial share of the distinctive elements, and elaborately crafted elements such as embroidery were often worked onto panels that could be removed from one garment and transferred to another as a young girl grew or as a woman's old clothes wore out. Men's apparel was more uniform in style, with some variation by locale, status, and age. Headgear has been the chief distinguishing feature of Palestinian men's costume both traditionally and in the present era.
Although regional variations of Palestinian costumes largely disappeared after the establishment of Israel
in 1948, which saw the Palestinian exodus
, Palestinian embroidery and costume continue to be produced in new forms. While most modern Palestinians have now adopted Western
or generic Islamic fashions
, some continue to wear the traditional costumes as an expression of solidarity and pride in their heritage
.
Museum, notes that Palestinian clothing from the early 19th century to World War I
show "traces of similar styles of clothing represented in art over 3,000 years ago."
Hanan Munayyer, a collector of Palestinian clothing and researcher of its ancient origins, writes that examples of proto-Palestinian attire can be seen in artifacts
from the Canaan
ite period (1500 BCE), specifically in Egyptian
paintings that depict Canaanites wearing A-shaped garments. Munayyer also writes that from 1200 BCE up until 1940, all Palestinian dresses were cut from natural fabrics in a similar A-line shape with triangular sleeves. The distinctive silhouette of what archaeologists have dubbed the "Syria
n tunic
" is also observed in an ivory engraving from Megiddo dating to 1200 BCE.
In Palestine: Ancient and Modern (1949) produced by the Royal Ontario Museum
of Archaeology, Winifred Needler writes that:
-Egyptian times consist of "loose linen garments with patterned woven bands of wool, shoes and sandals and linen caps," and argues that these items are comparable to modern Palestinian costumes.
In the 8th century, Damascus
artisans began manufacturing fine needles and thereby made possible a shift from weaving
designs to embroidery
. The square chest piece (qabbeh) and decorated back panel (shinyar), so ubiquitous in Palestinian dresses, are also found in costume from 13th century Andalusia
. Each village in Palestine had motifs that were identifying markers for local women. The eight-pointed star
, the moon, birds, a diamond-shaped icon to ward off the evil eye
, palm leaves and stair steps were common patterns.
, a loose-fitting robe
, the cut varying by region. A square chest panel on the thob, known as the qabbeh, is often decorated. A highly decorated qabbeh could function as a family heirloom, handed down from mother to daughter for use on several different dresses. Embroidery on the lower back panel of the thob used in some regions, is known as the shinyar. In Bethlehem
, brocade on the back hem panel of the thob is known as the diyal. Pants or trousers known as libas or shirwal were commonly worn under the thob. The men's shirwal was typically black, white or blue cotton.
Both men and women also donned jackets, known as jubbeh, over their everyday dress. If embroidered, the jubbeh was known as the jillayeh. A short embroidered jacket known as the taqsireh, deriving its name from the Arabic
verb "to shorten", was worn by the women of Bethlehem
on festive occasions. The gold couching of the taqsireh often matched the thob. European influence on local fashions resulted in the addition of pockets sometime in the 1930s.
In villages, men wore a traditional, ankle-length coat (qumbaz) with a rounded neckline and narrow sleeves, often striped. Reportedly, the color of the coat could identify one's village. For Bedouin men, the overcoat or shoulder mantle is known as an abaya. Under such coats, the traditional village or Bedouin costume included a cotton or wool tunic (qamis).
Traditionally, Palestinians wore sandals
or were barefoot, donning red or brown leather shoes as needed.
The sha'weh, a distinctive conical hat "shaped rather like an upturned flower pot," was worn only by married women, mainly in Bethlehem
, Lifta
and Ain Karm
(District of Jerusalem), and Beit Jala
and Beit Sahour
(Bethlehem District). Hanan Munayyer's research revealed that these hats, often associated with women of King Arthur
's court, were seen on Levant
ine women by the Crusaders who subsequently brought the style back to Europe
.
The smadeh, or awkaa an embroidered cap with a stiff padded rim worn in Ramallah
, had a row of golden or silver coins, tightly placed one against the other, around the top of the rim. Additional coins might be sewn to the upper part or attached to narrow, embroidered bands. As with the other female head-dresses, the smadeh represented bridal wealth, and acted as an important cash reserve. One observer wrote in 1935: "Sometimes you see a gap in the row of coins and you guess that a doctor's bill has had to be paid, or the husband in America has failed to send money". A khirqah, or embroidered veil, was also often attached to the back of the smadeh. The khirqah was also a form of head covering on its own. A simple piece of veil-like material, the khirqah would loosely cover the head and shoulders. Unlike the smadeh or awkaa, the khirqah was very common regardless of marital status or wealth.
The words araqiyyeh and taqiyyeh have been used since the Middle Ages
in the Arab world
to denote small, close-fitting head-caps, usually of cotton, worn by both genders. The original purpose was to absorb sweat (in Arabic: "araq"). In the Hebron area, araqiyyeh came to denote the embroidered cap with a pointed top that a married women would wear over her taqiyyeh. During her period of engagement prior to marriage, a woman of the Hebron area would sew and embroider her araqiyyeh, embellishing the rim with coins from her bridal money. The first time she would wear her araqiyyeh would be on her wedding day. A large veil known as the shambar was also commonly worn in the Hebron
area and in southern Palestine.
Before World War I, the use of a veil to cover the face was not widespread among the women of Palestine, and was more common among urban middle and upper class women than among Bedouin and peasant women. Peasant women could not afford to be obstructed in their house and fieldwork, and traditionally the Bedouins did not cover their faces. A veil covering the face was a symbol of status, a class marker, and a sign of female modesty and family honour, worn primarily by women who did not have to do physical labour. The majority of women in Palestine donned a mandil for everyday dress; a white cloth that covered the head and shoulders, while leaving the face uncovered.
, held in place by black headropes (agal
). The urban elite wore turbans (where wide, bulky turbans proclaimed a man's social importance), until mid- late- 19th century, when they changed to the Turkish tall, stiff, red tarbush istambouli or fez
.
The greatest variation of headgear was in the villages. Village men wore a soft, red felt hat (tarbush), with a type of turban
(laffeh) wrapped around it, leaving the crown (top) of the tarbush exposed. The laffeh signified status and position, as H.B. Tristram
noticed while visiting the Samaritan
s of the Nablus-region in 1865:
Turban colour could also indicate political affiliations. In the early 20th century, a white turban, besides signifying a Muslim or even an Islamic law judge
, was also worn by supporters of the Yaman political faction, while the opposing Qais
faction wore red.
The adoption of the tarbush and laffeh signified manhood, and boys wore only a cap (taqiyeh). The one exception was for the boy's circumcision
ceremony, when a highly decorated tarbush was worn. The circumcision ceremony would be the main occasion in a man's life for celebration and display of his social value, and was in this respect the male equivalent of the wedding for women, even though most boys were circumcised under the age of six. On his circumcision day a boy was ornamented in a similar way to a bride, and led in procession on horseback or camel through the village.
During the Arab revolt, the headdress changed significantly. While the rebels, mostly tenants, peasants and agriculturalists, were taking control of a number of Palestinian towns, they sought to make their presence visible and in August 1938, they issued a decree calling ordering all Arab men to wear the hatta or keffiyeh
. This style of headdress, which consisted of a white cloth held in place by a dark cord (iqal), was popular among Bedouins and some peasants but came to be adopted by many villagers and townsmen, especially the young, as an expression of Palestinian nationalism
. Photographs from this period (1930s-1940s) show that the head cloth was white. It was only by the 1950s that the chessboard gray-and-white or black-and-white pattern came to known as "typically Palestinian". The red-and-white pattern was associated with the Bedouins east of the Jordan river, and was also worn by the troops of the Arab Legion
and Emir Abdullah himself. Meanwhile, the tarbush and laffeh went out of fashion except among elderly men. After the 1967 war
and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the black and white keffiyeh adopted by Yasser Arafat
became, according to Weir, a "potent symbol of Palestinian national identity [..] [becoming] a popular motif in Palestinian cartoons, posters and paintings, and its meaning has passed into the international language of costume."
, clothing for men had a more uniform style than women's clothing.
Traditionally, Palestinian society has been divided into three groups: villagers, townspeople, and Bedouin
s. The villagers, referred to in Arabic as fellaheen, lived in relative isolation, so that the older, more traditional costume designs were found most frequently in the dress of village women. The specificity of local village designs was such that, "A Palestinian woman's village could be deduced from the embroidery on her dress." Townspeople, had increased access to news and an openness to outside influences that was naturally also reflected in the costumes, with town fashions exhibiting a more impermanent nature than that of the village. By the early 20th century, well to-do women in the cities had mostly adopted a Western style of dress. Typically, Ghada Karmi
recalls in her autobiography how in the 1940s in the wealthy Arab district of Katamon, Jerusalem, only the maids, who were local village women, donned traditional Palestinian dresses. Due to their nomadic life-style, Bedouin costume reflected tribal affiliations, rather than (as in case of the villagers) a localized geographic area.
was a key industry of the destroyed village of Majdal. Majdalawi weaving, as the technique is known, is woven by a male weaver on a single treadle loom
, using black and indigo cotton threads combined with fuchsia and turquoise silk threads. While the village no longer exists today, the craft of Majdalawi weaving continues as part of a cultural preservation project run by the Atfaluna Crafts organization and the Arts and Crafts Village in Gaza City.
Weaving among the Bedouins is still traditionally carried out by women to create household items suited for the life in the desert. The thread is spun from sheep's wool, colored with natural dye
s, and woven into a fabric using a ground loom and the strong fabric produced is used for tents, rugs, pillows, and other domestic items.
In the past, linen woven on hand-loom
s, and cotton, both raw or dyed deep blue with indigo
, were the mainstay fabrics for embroidered garments. According to Shelagh Weir, indigo (nileh), produced a colour thought to ward off the evil eye, and was dominantly used for coats in the Galilee, and dresses in southern Palestine. Indigo dyed heavy cotton was also used to make sirwals or shirwals, cotton trousers worn by men and women that were baggy through to the ankles or tailored tight around the calves. Wealthier regions had garments of a darker blue, being able to afford to dip cloth in the vat as many as nine times. Dresses with the heaviest and most intricate embroidery tend to be those described as 'black', being heavy cotton or linen of a very dark blue. Travellers to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries represented pastoral scenes of peasant women donned in blue going about their daily tasks, in art and literature.
Because of the hot climate and for reasons of prestige, dresses were cut voluminously, particularly in the south, often running twice the length of the human body with the excess being wrapped up into a belt. For more festive dresses in southern Palestine, silk was also used. For example, a fashion of the Bethlehem area was to interlay stripes of indigo-blue linen with those of silk. Today, the fabrics used for dresses are largely machine-made and do not always equal the quality of the embroidery.
-ruled Palestine. Women would sew in items to represent their heritage, ancestry, and affiliations. Triangles, used as amulets, were often incorporated to ward off the "evil eye
", a common superstition in the Middle East. Large blocks of intricate embroidery were used on the chest panel to protect the vulnerable chest area from the evil eye, bad luck and illness. To avoid potential jinxes from other women, an imperfection was stitched in each garment to distract the focus of those looking. Girls would begin producing embroidered garments, a skill generally passed to them by their grandmothers, beginning at the age of seven. Since most young girls were not sent to school, much of their time outside of household chores was spent creating clothes. Much of this would be preparation for their marriage trousseau (or jhaz) which would consist of all dress requirements for future life including everyday and ceremonial dresses, jewelry, veils, headdresses, kerchiefs, girdles, belts, undergarments and footwear.
Diverse motif
s were favored in Palestinian embroidery and costume as Palestine's long history and position on the international trade route
s exposed it to multiple influences. The cypress tree (saru) motif is found throughout Palestine in many complex and simple forms. Other Palestinian motifs are derived from quite basic geometric forms such as triangles, squares and rosettes
. In the late 1930s, new influences introduced by Europe
an pattern books and magazines promoted the appearance of curvilinear motifs, like flowers, vines or leaf arrangements, and introduced the paired bird motif which became very popular in central Palestinian regions. John Whitting (collector for parts of the MOIFA
collection) has argued that "anything later than 1918 was not indigenous Palestinian design, but had input from foreign pattern books brought in by foreign nuns and Swiss nannies". Others say that the changes did not set in before the late 1930s, up to which time embroidery motifs local to certain villages could still be found. Geometric motifs remained popular in the Galilee
and southern regions, like the Sinai Desert.
Before the appearance of synthetically dyed threads, the colors used in Palestinian embroidery were determined by the materials available for the production of natural dye
s: "reds" from insects and pomegranate, "dark blues" from the indigo
plant: "yellow" from saffron
flowers, soil and vine leaves, "brown" from oak bark, and "purple" from crushed murex shells. Shahin argues that the colors used in Palestinian embroidery include the ancient color schemes of the Canaan
ite and Philistine coast: red, purple, indigo blue, and saffron and that more recently, Islamic green and Byzantine
black were added to the traditional palette.
Shelagh Weir, author of Palestinian costume (1989) and Palestinian embroidery (1970), demarcates embroidery distribution patterns in Palestine by painting two horizontal lines: the first running south of Mount Carmel
and the Sea of Galilee
at the longitude of Afula
, and the second running north of Jaffa
and south of Nablus
from the coast to the Jordan River. Her research indicates that in the area between these two lines there is very little history of embroidery, though there remains evidence of traditions of fine decoration, including braidwork and appliqué, in women’s costume. An Arab
proverb of this particular region, originally recorded by Gustaf Dalman
in 1937, went: "embroidery signifies a lack of work."
Longstanding traditions of embroidery were found in the Upper and Lower Galilee
, and in the Judean Hills and on the coastal plain. Weir writes that cross-stitch
motifs may have been derived from oriental carpets, and that couching motifs may have origins in the vestments of Christian
priests or the gold thread work of Byzantium
.
Northern Palestine is one of the richest and most diverse regions in terms of traditional costume. In the upper and lower Galilee, costumes vary according to social class and religious sect.
The basic wardrobe of the fellaheen woman in the Galilee consisted of the thob (robe) and libas (pants) with a jillayeh (coat), and a smadeh (hat with coins). Embroidery was used throughout this region. In the 1860s, H.B. Tristram
described costumes in the villages of El Bussah
and Isfia as being either "plain, patched or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes". As may be seen in collections today, satin stitch
, diagonal satin stitch, cross-stitch, stem stitch and joining stitch were popular in the Galilee.
During the 19th century, coats in the Galilee were produced using varying techniques and fabrics. Often coats were made of handwoven cotton with front sections decorated in a rich patchwork of silk or taffeta
appliqué
(heremezy) and ikat
-dyed silk weaves, with back panels embroidered with silk thread in carpet-like designs of geometric motifs. While the basic garment pieces and construction were the same, the costumes donned by the Druze
of the northern Galilee wore more conservative due to their strict religious laws on modesty.
Nablus
costume had a distinctive style using colorful combinations of fabric. As an important trade centre with a flourishing souk
, items available in 1882 included a large choice of fabrics, from Damascus
and Aleppo
silk to Manchester
cottons and calicos. Garments were similar in construction to those in Galilee, with the wearing of both long and short Turkish
style jackets over the thob. For daily wear, thobs were often made of white cotton or linen, with a preference for winged sleeves. In the summer, costumes often incorporated interwoven striped bands of red, green and yellow on the front and back, with appliqué and braidwork popularly decorating the qabbeh.
Ramallah
costumes used a white linen
fabric (roumi) for festive dresses and scarves, though in the winter, indigo
-dyed linen was preferred. Embroidery was predominantly red cross-stitch in silk
thread whose contrast against the white linen gives Ramallah garments their stylistic distinctiveness. Ramallah was known for a great variety of distinguishable very finely executed patterns. The qabbeh panel was often a separate piece of cloth that was then stitched to the dress, and in some garments extended from the chest over the back and shoulders. Other features of Ramallah costume included sleeve embroidery and two vertical bands on the front and back of the skirt covering the seams with an embroidered shinyar panel fitted between the vertical bands on the back hem.
Popular Ramallah motifs included: the tall date palm arranged in horizontal rows, a rainbow design (qos), the leech (lalaq), the star (nujum) and "moon feathers" (qamar-ish). Motifs introduced by European missionaries and those derived from earlier Turkish and Greek influence were used as well, such as flowering plants, irises and birds. The smadeh was of a type that was once also worn throughout northern Palestine: a small roundish cap, padded and stiffened, with gold and silver coins set in a fringe. A long veil was pinned to the back, sometimes of silk and sometimes embroidered.
Bethlehem
costumes and embroidery were popular in villages throughout the Judaean Hills and the coastal plain and the female embroiderers of Bethlehem and the neighbouring villages of Beit Jala
and Beit Sahour
were known to be professional producers of wedding costumes. Bethlehem was a center for embroidery that produced a "strong overall effect of colors and metallic brilliance."
Less formal dresses in Bethlehem were generally made of indigo fabric with a sleeveless coat (bisht) worn overtop, made from locally woven wool. Dresses for special occasions were made of striped silk with winged sleeves, and the short taqsireh jacket, known throughout Palestine as the "Bethlehem jacket", was worn overtop. The taqsireh was made of velvet
or broadcloth
, and was usually heavily embroidered.
Bethlehem work was unique in its use of couched gold or silver cord, or silk cord which was applied onto the silk, wool, felt or velvet used for the garment to create stylized floral patterns with free or rounded lines. This technique was used for "royal" wedding dresses (thob malak), taqsirehs and the shatwehs worn by married women. It has been traced by some to Byzantium
, and by others to the more formal costumes of the elite of the Ottoman empire. As Bethlehem was a Christian
village, local women were also exposed to the detailing on church vestments with their heavy embroidery and silver brocade.
Hebron
and the surrounding villages of Beit Ummar
, Bani Na'im
, Beit Jibrin, ad-Dhahiriya
, ad-Dura and Samula produced some the richest and most beautiful forms of Palestinian embroidery. The fabrics used included handwoven linens, cottons and indigo-dyed silks cut in a manner similar to that of Ramallah dresses, often with long sleeves. The embroidered areas on dresses in the Hebron region were much larger and denser than those of Ramallah, with the sides and back also embroidered in vertical patterns.
The standard embroidery stitch was cross-stitch with fishbone used as a joining stitch. Dresses for special occasions used the heremezy technique, with triangular and diamond silk appliqué patches with significance attached to them as amulet
s. The qabbeh was similar to the Ramallah style using the rainbow qos to determine composition. Motifs on the qabbeh would often be repeated on the shinyar of the skirt and included stars, triangles, grapes, cypress trees, and birds, among others.
Jerusalem never developed any indigenous style of costume, tending to borrow from local and international influences manifested in its cosmopolitan population. Major local influences on Palestinian garments donned in Jerusalem came largely from Bethlehem and Ramallah. Jerusalem dresses tended to be of the basic Ramallah style with decorative panels often embroidered in Ramallah, while using completely different fabrics from those traditionally used in the Ramallah district. A dress with quilt-like patches known as the thob abu qutbeh, "the dress of pieces", was made from long patches of Aleppo
or Damascus silk or velvet (or in some cases, Syria
n embroidered fabrics) with a Bethlehem qabbeh sewn onto the chest.
Lifta
(near Jerusalem), and Beit Dajan
(near Jaffa
) were known as being among the wealthiest communities in their areas, and the embroidery produced in these towns was among the most artistic. Beit Dajan remained an influential centre of weaving and embroidery until 1948.
A popular motif was the nafnuf design: a floral pattern thought to be inspired by the locally grown orange trees. The nafnuf design changed after World War I
becoming embroidery running in long panels known as "branches" (erq). It is the forerunner of the "6 branch" style dresses worn by Palestinian women in different regions today.
The Jericho
thob was extremely long, usually two to three times the height of the woman wearing it. The excess fabric was gathered up and pulled through a belt, so that it fell over in a fold, forming three layers. The air trapped in these folds was cooling in the Jordan Valley
's exceedingly hot climate. The sleeves were so large that they could be thrown over the head as a veil, or used to carry objects. Despite these functional aspects, the amount of fabric used for the dress also spoke to status and exhibited the wealth of its owner.
was an agriculturally rich area, and towns in this region, like Jaffa
and Majdal
, used very little embroidery. Costumes instead featured the fabric itself, often made up of strong stripes of purple, magenta or green.
Gauze is reputed to have originated in Gaza
and transported to Europe by the Crusaders. Cloth for the Gaza thob was often woven at nearby Majdal. Black or blue cottons or striped pink and green fabric that had been made in Majdal continued to be woven in the Gaza Strip
by refugees from the coastal plain villages until the 1960s. Thobs here had narrow, tight, straight sleeves. Embroidery was much less dense than that applied in Hebron. The most popular motifs included: scissors (muqass), combs (mushut) and triangles (hijab) often arranged in clusters of fives, sevens and threes, as the use of odd numbers is considered in Arab
folklore
to be effective against the evil eye
. The heavy use of triangular motifs and designs with amuletic significance exemplifies the similarities in the styles and traditions of the southern fellaheen and the local nomadic Bedouin tribes.
. Besides offering protection from the elements, the burqa was used by Bedouin women to display wealth and status. Hanging from a narrow band at the forehead, the burqa covered the nose, mouth and neck areas. The basic thob here was cut fuller than that of the fellaheen, and the sleeves were either with narrow with no cuffs, or those of a long winged style called abu erdan. Usually made of heavy cotton, poplin
or sateen
, black was the preferred colour for fabric. Sinai and Negev Bedouin
women used the same brightly coloured embroidery cross-stich used throughout Palestinian villages.
The colour of the embroidery was highly significant: stitches in blue were used by young, unmarried women, and only after marriage or becoming pregnant were women permitted to adorn their dresses with red embroidery. Embroidery was focused not the qabbeh, but rather on the shinyar at the back of the dress which was decorated with heavily embroidered block-like geometric forms in dense cross-stitch. Shawls of black cotton or silk were worn for special occasions, with embroidery designs extending from the top of the head to the embroidered back panel of the dress down the centre. The village of El Arish combined Bedouin styles with those used in the Palestinian villages.
in the northern, western and southern parts of Palestine in 1948 severely disrupted Palestinian society and culture, and over half the rural population became refugees. Another wave of refugees
was produced by the 1967 war and there is very little that remains of the costume and textile traditions of the 1950s and 1960s. Traditional costume made a resurgence after 1967, but in much plainer styles than before. Local weaving practices had largely ceased and without access to the same quality of imported fabrics, costumes became less ornate and more practical. Elaborate shambars and smadehs as well as the distinctions between everyday dress and formal wear were largely lost.
The highly evolved regional styles disappeared after the mass movement of village populations into the refugee camps. Certain general styles emerged such as the "6 branch" and the shawal, the latter designed originally for sale to Western markets. During the intifada
in the late 1980s, traditional costume was used as a means of passive protest and a way of expressing national pride. Embroidery produced by refugees in the camps which had served as a way of generating a stable income, has since been transformed into one of the most enduring elements of Palestinian cultural heritage.
Today, Palestinian costume styles no longer follow the traditional regional breakdown and can instead be classified as refugee camp styles, Palestinian Territories
styles, and Bedouin costume, with Bedouin costume retaining most of the elements of its traditional pre-1948 role. Western and Islamic dress are predominant in the styles of the Palestinian territories, though various forms of "traditional" embroidered dresses remain popular there, and in the Palestinian diaspora
. However, what is now identified as "traditional" is often a much simpler garment in terms of construction and decoration.
was one of the first to see the potential traditional embroidery and costume making could have in empowering Palestinian women, founding The Society of Ina'ash El-Usra in 1965 in al-Bireh
, West Bank
. Besides becoming one of the major modern-day producers of Palestinian handcrafts, the organization also has a museum of Palestinian costumes. In 1969, Serene Husseini Shahid
and Huguette Caland
co-founded the Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps (INAASH) in Lebanon
, which is devoted to preserving traditional Palestinian embroidery and assisting women and children in Palestinian refugee camps.
The "6 branch" style—named for the six vertical bands of embroidery that run from waist to hem—emerged in the 1960s and it was the first post-1948 style to evolve without being tied to an established regional style. It is characterized by its curvilinear foliage and flower designs and its various "branches of birds" motifs drawn primarily from European patterns. Perle cotton
thread was most popularly used, with multicoloured shaded threads being popular in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Refugees producing clothing for consumption by Western markets led to the development of the shawal style in the 1980s. A pre-embroidered uncut form made of heavy linen would have embroidery added onto the main fabric which was sold with a fringed shawl similarly worked. Geometric embroidery motifs and the saru remained common in these pieces. Although originally developed for the foreign market, the shawal also became populat among women in Jordan
and the occupied Palestinian territories as a kind of Palestinian haute couture.
Embroidery also developed as a kind of cultural form not solely restricted to costume in the 1980s, as aid projects in the refugee camps encouraged the creation of new products. One young woman from the Sulafa UNRWA embroidery project has said: "... we no longer embroider in the style of our towns, we embroider for our houses and for our work. We embroidered cushions, clocks and maps of Palestine. Embroidery is our heritage. We love embroidery ... and we are proud of it" (Price 2000 p. 17). Each refugee camp or aid organization has developed certain stylistic characterizations with time. For example, Christian imagery such as stars, mangers and Christmas trees appear as common designs on products from aid agencies such as Sunbula that enjoy church funding. Projects in Lebanon
such as those of Al-Badia are known for high quality embroidery in silk thread on dresses made of linen.
and other Islamic movements sought to increase the use of the hijab
(headscarf) among Gazan women, especially urban and educated women, and the hijab styles since introduced have varied according to class and group identity. New forms of Islamic dress, such as shari'a dress (plain long tailored overcoats worn with the hijab) have proliferated as well. Described by Reem Hammami as "an invented tradition in both form and meaning", Fadwa El Guindi notes that this kind of Islamic dress has "no precedents in indigenous Palestinian dress (Seng and Wass 1995), and explains it as, "[...] a movement developing in the context of occupation and resistance, subjugation and struggle, in which the hijab is ideologized and transformed into a symbol of resistance."
, known as an artist of the Intifada, depicted traditional Palestinian dress in his poster, Palestine.
A new style of shawal dress, known as the "flag dress", was made for a limited period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, featuring embroidery predominantly in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and other nationalist
motifs such as the flag and map of Palestine, the Dome of the Rock
mosque, gun
s and grenade
s, or the pattern of the keffiyeh
, which were worked into the structure of the qabbeh and the vertical skirt panels, or the shinyar. Um Ahmed, a 75-year old woman from Beit 'Ummar explained that "people were being imprisoned for carrying the flag, so women would embroider it on their thobs" (Price 2000 p. 15). Um Ahmed created an embroidery motif called the Palestine design: "women made up the name during the intifada. When the women started this design, they said it would be called Palestine" (ibid, p. 39) The pattern resembled a flowery border rather than anything nationalistic, but Price suggests that even the political naming of embroidery motifs at this time could be perceived as an act of nationalist defiance. With the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada (Second Intifada)
, women again wore these "flag dresses" as a sign of protest, though the actual production of such dresses in this style has declined.
In the mid-1980s, embroidered items produced by refugees were clearly marked with tags reading "Israel
i handicraft" in English
and Hebrew
, prompting Palestinians to incorporate "Palestine" calligraphy directly into the embroidery designs, with words like "Palestine", "PLO", "Abu Amar", and slogans such as "We shall return
".
an travelers in Palestine began gathering costumes for collections, which paved the way for future exhibits and research. For example, the painter William Holman Hunt
put together a collection now housed at the Royal Ontario Museum
. Holman relied on the costumes to depict what were described as "photographic and archaeologically
correct" Biblical scenes. Unlike some 'Orientalist
' painters who romanticized exotic dress, Holman Hunt is said to have painted it with "meticulous accuracy." Another painter of Biblical subjects at that time was William Hole, who collected Palestinian costumes and was advised by David Whiting, an expert collector of Palestinian village costume.
Foreign residents of the American Colony in Jerusalem played a central role in the collection and sale of local costumes. Notably, John Whitting (died 1951) left his collection to his daughter, Grace Spafford Whitting of the American Colony Hotel
, who subsequently passed on the costumes to the Museum of International Folk Art
in Santa Fe
. Meanwhile, in the early 20th century, members of the American Colony assembled a collection given to the Oriental Institute Museum
of the University of Chicago
. Not surprisingly, much of the historiography
of the Palestinian costume has been based on such collections.
Palestinian costumes have also been preserved through less directly tangible means such as photography
. The artistry of the costumes was captured and disseminated, for instance, through postcard
s from Palestine. According to Tim Jon Semmerling, such postcards diminished Palestinian identity since they "promote Orientalized portrayals
of Palestinians."
During the 1980s, there was a growing interest in Palestinian costume at international museums. Previously, most exhibitions of Palestinian costume and embroidery had been limited to displays organized by the PLO and other pro-Palestinian political groups. In 1989, the British Museum
's Museum of Mankind held a major display of their Palestinian collection, curated by Shelagh Weir. According to Akbar Ahmed, the exhibit received an overwhelmingly positive response, though Weir was sharply attacked for what was seen as an attempt to project the Palestinian cause. Weir worked closely with private collectors, such as Widad Kamel Kawar, a Palestinian residing in Jordan. Kawar's own private collection also toured several European and Asian venues in the 1980s. The Palestine Costume Archive established its traveling exhibition program in 1995, and had five museum quality exhibitions and twenty smaller displays touring internationally by the early 21st century. The Archive tours Palestinian diaspora
communities so as to sustain interest and knowledge of Palestinian culture.
In 1995, the Palestinian National Authority
issued a series of four postage stamps featuring women in Palestinian costumes.
In 2006, an international exhibit, Sovereign Threads, was showcased at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles
. Organized by the Lebanese
artist Huguette Caland, in cooperation with the INAASH association, Caland describes the motifs in Palestinian embroidery and costume as, "some of the most beautiful in the world [,having] influenced textile and fashion designers for years."
Examples of Palestinian costumes and related artifacts are housed in several museums and collections, both public and private. The following is a list of public collections:
, continue to explore traditional designs producing dresses with heremezy panels and saru motif cross-stitch since 2001. Other dresses are modern interpretations of traditional designs from Jericho
and Salt
. The ANAT Workshop in Damascus
and the Family Care Society in Amman also produce "replicated" traditional dresses based on surviving pre-1948 designs, though "modernized dresses" they carry the traditional Palestinian characteristics and "the form and shape of the motifs as well as the patterns" can also be commissioned.
Further reference materials:
Producers:
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
worn by Palestinians
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
. Foreign travelers to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women. Many of the handcrafted garments were richly embroidered and the creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in the lives of the region's women.
Most experts in the field trace the origins of Palestinian costumes to ancient times, though there are no surviving clothing artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
from this early period against which the modern items might be definitively compared. Influences from the various empire
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....
s to have ruled Palestine, such as Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and the Byzantine empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, among others, have been documented by scholars largely based on the depictions in art and descriptions in literature of costumes produced during these times.
Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian costumes reflected a woman's economic status, whether married or single, and the town or district of origin, and a knowledgeable observer could glean such information from the fabric
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
, colours, cut
Cut (clothing)
Cut in clothing, sewing and tailoring, is the style or shape of a garment as opposed to its fabric or trimmings.The cut of a coat refers to the way the garment hangs on the body based on the shape of the fabric pieces used to construct it, the position of the fabric's grain line, and so on....
, and embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
motifs (or lack thereof) in a given woman's apparel. Dresses generally had a loose-fitting cut that allowed for considerable freedom of movement. Decorative embellishments supplied a substantial share of the distinctive elements, and elaborately crafted elements such as embroidery were often worked onto panels that could be removed from one garment and transferred to another as a young girl grew or as a woman's old clothes wore out. Men's apparel was more uniform in style, with some variation by locale, status, and age. Headgear has been the chief distinguishing feature of Palestinian men's costume both traditionally and in the present era.
Although regional variations of Palestinian costumes largely disappeared after the establishment of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1948, which saw the Palestinian exodus
1948 Palestinian exodus
The 1948 Palestinian exodus , also known as the Nakba , occurred when approximately 711,000 to 725,000 Palestinian Arabs left, fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Civil War that preceded it. The exact number of refugees is a matter of dispute...
, Palestinian embroidery and costume continue to be produced in new forms. While most modern Palestinians have now adopted Western
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
or generic Islamic fashions
Islam and clothing
Adherents of Islam are concerned with clothing in two contexts: clothing for everyday wear, inside and outside the house; and clothing required in specifically religious contexts....
, some continue to wear the traditional costumes as an expression of solidarity and pride in their heritage
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
.
Origins
Geoff Emberling, director of the Oriental InstituteOriental Institute, Chicago
The Oriental Institute , established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies.- History and purpose:James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum...
Museum, notes that Palestinian clothing from the early 19th century to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
show "traces of similar styles of clothing represented in art over 3,000 years ago."
Hanan Munayyer, a collector of Palestinian clothing and researcher of its ancient origins, writes that examples of proto-Palestinian attire can be seen in artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
from the Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ite period (1500 BCE), specifically in Egyptian
Art of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
paintings that depict Canaanites wearing A-shaped garments. Munayyer also writes that from 1200 BCE up until 1940, all Palestinian dresses were cut from natural fabrics in a similar A-line shape with triangular sleeves. The distinctive silhouette of what archaeologists have dubbed the "Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n tunic
Tunic
A tunic is any of several types of clothing for the body, of various lengths reaching from the shoulders to somewhere between the hips and the ankles...
" is also observed in an ivory engraving from Megiddo dating to 1200 BCE.
In Palestine: Ancient and Modern (1949) produced by the Royal Ontario Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...
of Archaeology, Winifred Needler writes that:
"No actual clothing from ancient Palestine has survived and detailed descriptions are lacking in the ancient literature. In their length, fullness, and use of pattern these modern garments bear a general resemblance to the costumes of West Asiatic people seen in ancient Egyptian and AssyriaNeedler also notes that well-preserved costumes from late RomanAssyriaAssyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n monuments. The dress of the daughters of ZionZionZion is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. The word is first found in Samuel II, 5:7 dating to c.630-540 BCE...
mentioned in IsaiahIsaiahIsaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
3:22-24, with 'changeable suits of apparel,' 'mantles,' 'wimples,' 'hoods,' 'vails,' and 'girdles', suggests that feminine city fashions of Isaiah's day may have resembled modern Palestinian country dress."
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
-Egyptian times consist of "loose linen garments with patterned woven bands of wool, shoes and sandals and linen caps," and argues that these items are comparable to modern Palestinian costumes.
In the 8th century, Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
artisans began manufacturing fine needles and thereby made possible a shift from weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
designs to embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
. The square chest piece (qabbeh) and decorated back panel (shinyar), so ubiquitous in Palestinian dresses, are also found in costume from 13th century Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
. Each village in Palestine had motifs that were identifying markers for local women. The eight-pointed star
Arabic star
The Arabic star is a punctuation mark developed to be distinct from the asterisk . The asterisk had existed in feudal times, and the original shape of the asterisk was six-pointed, each point like a teardrop coming from the center...
, the moon, birds, a diamond-shaped icon to ward off the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
, palm leaves and stair steps were common patterns.
Basic dress
Traditionally, the Palestinian costume for women is centered around the thobThawb
A thawb or thobe , dishdasha , kandura , or suriyah in Libya, is an ankle-length garment, usually with long sleeves, similar to a robe. It is commonly worn in Arab countries. An Izaar is commonly worn underneath.-Background:...
, a loose-fitting robe
Robe
A robe is a loose-fitting outer garment. A robe is distinguished from a cape or cloak by the fact that it usually has sleeves. The English word robe derives from Middle English robe , borrowed from Old French robe , itself taken from the Frankish word *rouba , and is related to the word rob...
, the cut varying by region. A square chest panel on the thob, known as the qabbeh, is often decorated. A highly decorated qabbeh could function as a family heirloom, handed down from mother to daughter for use on several different dresses. Embroidery on the lower back panel of the thob used in some regions, is known as the shinyar. In Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
, brocade on the back hem panel of the thob is known as the diyal. Pants or trousers known as libas or shirwal were commonly worn under the thob. The men's shirwal was typically black, white or blue cotton.
Both men and women also donned jackets, known as jubbeh, over their everyday dress. If embroidered, the jubbeh was known as the jillayeh. A short embroidered jacket known as the taqsireh, deriving its name from the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
verb "to shorten", was worn by the women of Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
on festive occasions. The gold couching of the taqsireh often matched the thob. European influence on local fashions resulted in the addition of pockets sometime in the 1930s.
In villages, men wore a traditional, ankle-length coat (qumbaz) with a rounded neckline and narrow sleeves, often striped. Reportedly, the color of the coat could identify one's village. For Bedouin men, the overcoat or shoulder mantle is known as an abaya. Under such coats, the traditional village or Bedouin costume included a cotton or wool tunic (qamis).
Traditionally, Palestinians wore sandals
Sandal (footwear)
Sandals are an open type of outdoor footwear, consisting of a sole held to the wearer's foot by straps passing over the instep and, sometimes, around the ankle...
or were barefoot, donning red or brown leather shoes as needed.
Headdress
It was deemed proper and dignified both for men and women of all religious denominations to cover their heads, whereas it was discouraged (´ayb) to leave it uncovered. Local variations in headdress abounded, with the most profound differences seen along the rural/urban divide. For men in particular, headdress served as the chief distinguishing feature from which one might determine class, religious affiliation or political/social inclinations. With women, the headress was a form of modesty, and determinant of class, and marital status. In Palestine and historic Palestine, the head coverings were worn by generally all adults (and some children), regardless of religion.Women
The women in each region wore distinctive headdresses, often embellished with gold and silver coins from their bridewealth money. The more coins, the greater the wealth and prestige of the owner.The sha'weh, a distinctive conical hat "shaped rather like an upturned flower pot," was worn only by married women, mainly in Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
, Lifta
Lifta
Lifta was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its population fled during the Arab-Jewish hostilities of 1947/48 and the efforts to relieve the Siege of Jerusalem . The village and spring for which it is named are now a park on the hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and...
and Ain Karm
Ayn Karim
‘Ayn Karim was a Palestinian town in the British mandate District of JerusalemThe population of 'Ayn Karim in 1931 was 2,637 and in 1944/45 it was 3,180, in each case including the smaller localities of Ayn al-Rawwas and Ayn al-Khandaq....
(District of Jerusalem), and Beit Jala
Beit Jala
Beit Jala is an Arab Christian town in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank. Beit Jala is located 10 km south of Jerusalem, on the western side of the Hebron road, opposite Bethlehem, at altitude...
and Beit Sahour
Beit Sahour
Beit Sahour is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority...
(Bethlehem District). Hanan Munayyer's research revealed that these hats, often associated with women of King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
's court, were seen on Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
ine women by the Crusaders who subsequently brought the style back to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
The smadeh, or awkaa an embroidered cap with a stiff padded rim worn in Ramallah
Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
, had a row of golden or silver coins, tightly placed one against the other, around the top of the rim. Additional coins might be sewn to the upper part or attached to narrow, embroidered bands. As with the other female head-dresses, the smadeh represented bridal wealth, and acted as an important cash reserve. One observer wrote in 1935: "Sometimes you see a gap in the row of coins and you guess that a doctor's bill has had to be paid, or the husband in America has failed to send money". A khirqah, or embroidered veil, was also often attached to the back of the smadeh. The khirqah was also a form of head covering on its own. A simple piece of veil-like material, the khirqah would loosely cover the head and shoulders. Unlike the smadeh or awkaa, the khirqah was very common regardless of marital status or wealth.
The words araqiyyeh and taqiyyeh have been used since the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
to denote small, close-fitting head-caps, usually of cotton, worn by both genders. The original purpose was to absorb sweat (in Arabic: "araq"). In the Hebron area, araqiyyeh came to denote the embroidered cap with a pointed top that a married women would wear over her taqiyyeh. During her period of engagement prior to marriage, a woman of the Hebron area would sew and embroider her araqiyyeh, embellishing the rim with coins from her bridal money. The first time she would wear her araqiyyeh would be on her wedding day. A large veil known as the shambar was also commonly worn in the Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
area and in southern Palestine.
Before World War I, the use of a veil to cover the face was not widespread among the women of Palestine, and was more common among urban middle and upper class women than among Bedouin and peasant women. Peasant women could not afford to be obstructed in their house and fieldwork, and traditionally the Bedouins did not cover their faces. A veil covering the face was a symbol of status, a class marker, and a sign of female modesty and family honour, worn primarily by women who did not have to do physical labour. The majority of women in Palestine donned a mandil for everyday dress; a white cloth that covered the head and shoulders, while leaving the face uncovered.
Men
Until the 1930s, the men wore headwear that would be a clear marker of their wealth, locale, religious and political position. Bedouins and some peasants wore a hatta or keffiyehKeffiyeh
The keffiyeh/kufiya , also known as a ghutrah , ' , mashadah , shemagh or in Persian chafiye , Kurdish cemedanî and Turkish puşi, is a traditional Arab headdress fashioned from a square, usually cotton, scarf. It is typically worn by Arab men, as well as some Kurds...
, held in place by black headropes (agal
Agal
The agal , also spelled iqal, egal or igal, is an accessory constructed of cord which is fastened around the Keffiyeh to hold it in place. The agal is usually black in colour....
). The urban elite wore turbans (where wide, bulky turbans proclaimed a man's social importance), until mid- late- 19th century, when they changed to the Turkish tall, stiff, red tarbush istambouli or fez
Fez (clothing)
The fez , or tarboosh is a felt hat either in the shape of a red truncated cone or in the shape of a short cylinder made of kilim fabric. Both usually have tassels...
.
The greatest variation of headgear was in the villages. Village men wore a soft, red felt hat (tarbush), with a type of turban
Turban
In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...
(laffeh) wrapped around it, leaving the crown (top) of the tarbush exposed. The laffeh signified status and position, as H.B. Tristram
Henry Baker Tristram
The Reverend Henry Baker Tristram FRS was an English clergyman, Biblical scholar, traveller and ornithologist.Tristram was born at Eglingham vicarage, near Alnwick, Northumberland, and studied at Durham School and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1846 he was ordained a priest, but he suffered from...
noticed while visiting the Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
s of the Nablus-region in 1865:
All [Samaritans] wore red turban, the peculiar badge of the sect, while colour white is appropriate to the Moslems, green being the exclusive colour of the shireefAshrafAshraf refers to someone claiming descent from Muhammad by way of his daughter Fatimah. The word is the plural of sharīf "noble", from sharafa "to be highborn"...
s or descendants of the prophet, and black or purple left to Jews or Christians.
Turban colour could also indicate political affiliations. In the early 20th century, a white turban, besides signifying a Muslim or even an Islamic law judge
Qadi
Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...
, was also worn by supporters of the Yaman political faction, while the opposing Qais
Qais
Qais , also spelled Qays or Kais, were an Arabian tribe branched from the Mudhar Adnani groups.-Main branches of Qais:The main branches of the Qais tribes are the Banu Sulaym, Hawazin and the Banu Ghatafan. These three main groups remained in the Eastern Hejaz until the 7th century...
faction wore red.
The adoption of the tarbush and laffeh signified manhood, and boys wore only a cap (taqiyeh). The one exception was for the boy's circumcision
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
ceremony, when a highly decorated tarbush was worn. The circumcision ceremony would be the main occasion in a man's life for celebration and display of his social value, and was in this respect the male equivalent of the wedding for women, even though most boys were circumcised under the age of six. On his circumcision day a boy was ornamented in a similar way to a bride, and led in procession on horseback or camel through the village.
During the Arab revolt, the headdress changed significantly. While the rebels, mostly tenants, peasants and agriculturalists, were taking control of a number of Palestinian towns, they sought to make their presence visible and in August 1938, they issued a decree calling ordering all Arab men to wear the hatta or keffiyeh
Keffiyeh
The keffiyeh/kufiya , also known as a ghutrah , ' , mashadah , shemagh or in Persian chafiye , Kurdish cemedanî and Turkish puşi, is a traditional Arab headdress fashioned from a square, usually cotton, scarf. It is typically worn by Arab men, as well as some Kurds...
. This style of headdress, which consisted of a white cloth held in place by a dark cord (iqal), was popular among Bedouins and some peasants but came to be adopted by many villagers and townsmen, especially the young, as an expression of Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people. It has roots in Pan-Arabism and other movements rejecting colonialism and calling for national independence. More recently, Palestinian Nationalism is expressed through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
. Photographs from this period (1930s-1940s) show that the head cloth was white. It was only by the 1950s that the chessboard gray-and-white or black-and-white pattern came to known as "typically Palestinian". The red-and-white pattern was associated with the Bedouins east of the Jordan river, and was also worn by the troops of the Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
and Emir Abdullah himself. Meanwhile, the tarbush and laffeh went out of fashion except among elderly men. After the 1967 war
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the black and white keffiyeh adopted by Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
became, according to Weir, a "potent symbol of Palestinian national identity [..] [becoming] a popular motif in Palestinian cartoons, posters and paintings, and its meaning has passed into the international language of costume."
Social and gender variations
Palestinian costumes reflected how men enjoyed more physical and social mobility than women. For the women of Palestine's towns and villages who rarely traveled, clothing reflected very distinctive styles and patterns unique to where they lived. Conversely, as in most of the Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, clothing for men had a more uniform style than women's clothing.
Traditionally, Palestinian society has been divided into three groups: villagers, townspeople, and Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
s. The villagers, referred to in Arabic as fellaheen, lived in relative isolation, so that the older, more traditional costume designs were found most frequently in the dress of village women. The specificity of local village designs was such that, "A Palestinian woman's village could be deduced from the embroidery on her dress." Townspeople, had increased access to news and an openness to outside influences that was naturally also reflected in the costumes, with town fashions exhibiting a more impermanent nature than that of the village. By the early 20th century, well to-do women in the cities had mostly adopted a Western style of dress. Typically, Ghada Karmi
Ghada Karmi
Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic. She writes frequently on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Nation and Journal of Palestine Studies...
recalls in her autobiography how in the 1940s in the wealthy Arab district of Katamon, Jerusalem, only the maids, who were local village women, donned traditional Palestinian dresses. Due to their nomadic life-style, Bedouin costume reflected tribal affiliations, rather than (as in case of the villagers) a localized geographic area.
Weaving and fabrics
The production of cloth for traditional Palestinian costumes and for export throughout the Arab worldArab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
was a key industry of the destroyed village of Majdal. Majdalawi weaving, as the technique is known, is woven by a male weaver on a single treadle loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
, using black and indigo cotton threads combined with fuchsia and turquoise silk threads. While the village no longer exists today, the craft of Majdalawi weaving continues as part of a cultural preservation project run by the Atfaluna Crafts organization and the Arts and Crafts Village in Gaza City.
Weaving among the Bedouins is still traditionally carried out by women to create household items suited for the life in the desert. The thread is spun from sheep's wool, colored with natural dye
Natural dye
Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources – roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood — and other organic sources such as fungi and lichens....
s, and woven into a fabric using a ground loom and the strong fabric produced is used for tents, rugs, pillows, and other domestic items.
In the past, linen woven on hand-loom
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
s, and cotton, both raw or dyed deep blue with indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
, were the mainstay fabrics for embroidered garments. According to Shelagh Weir, indigo (nileh), produced a colour thought to ward off the evil eye, and was dominantly used for coats in the Galilee, and dresses in southern Palestine. Indigo dyed heavy cotton was also used to make sirwals or shirwals, cotton trousers worn by men and women that were baggy through to the ankles or tailored tight around the calves. Wealthier regions had garments of a darker blue, being able to afford to dip cloth in the vat as many as nine times. Dresses with the heaviest and most intricate embroidery tend to be those described as 'black', being heavy cotton or linen of a very dark blue. Travellers to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries represented pastoral scenes of peasant women donned in blue going about their daily tasks, in art and literature.
Because of the hot climate and for reasons of prestige, dresses were cut voluminously, particularly in the south, often running twice the length of the human body with the excess being wrapped up into a belt. For more festive dresses in southern Palestine, silk was also used. For example, a fashion of the Bethlehem area was to interlay stripes of indigo-blue linen with those of silk. Today, the fabrics used for dresses are largely machine-made and do not always equal the quality of the embroidery.
Palestinian embroidery
Village women embroidering in locally-distinctive styles was a tradition that was at its height in OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
-ruled Palestine. Women would sew in items to represent their heritage, ancestry, and affiliations. Triangles, used as amulets, were often incorporated to ward off the "evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
", a common superstition in the Middle East. Large blocks of intricate embroidery were used on the chest panel to protect the vulnerable chest area from the evil eye, bad luck and illness. To avoid potential jinxes from other women, an imperfection was stitched in each garment to distract the focus of those looking. Girls would begin producing embroidered garments, a skill generally passed to them by their grandmothers, beginning at the age of seven. Since most young girls were not sent to school, much of their time outside of household chores was spent creating clothes. Much of this would be preparation for their marriage trousseau (or jhaz) which would consist of all dress requirements for future life including everyday and ceremonial dresses, jewelry, veils, headdresses, kerchiefs, girdles, belts, undergarments and footwear.
Diverse motif
Motif (textile arts)
In the textile arts, a motif is a smaller element in a much larger work. In knitting and crochet, motifs are made one at a time and joined together to create larger works such as afghan blankets or shawls. A good example of a motif is the granny square.Motifs can be any size, but usually all...
s were favored in Palestinian embroidery and costume as Palestine's long history and position on the international trade route
Trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long distance arteries which may further be connected to several smaller networks of commercial...
s exposed it to multiple influences. The cypress tree (saru) motif is found throughout Palestine in many complex and simple forms. Other Palestinian motifs are derived from quite basic geometric forms such as triangles, squares and rosettes
Rosette (design)
A rosette is a round, stylized flower design, used extensively in sculptural objects from antiquity. Appearing in Mesopotamia and used to decorate the funeral stele in Ancient Greece...
. In the late 1930s, new influences introduced by Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an pattern books and magazines promoted the appearance of curvilinear motifs, like flowers, vines or leaf arrangements, and introduced the paired bird motif which became very popular in central Palestinian regions. John Whitting (collector for parts of the MOIFA
Museum of International Folk Art
The Museum of International Folk Art is a state-run institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It is one of many cultural institutions operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs...
collection) has argued that "anything later than 1918 was not indigenous Palestinian design, but had input from foreign pattern books brought in by foreign nuns and Swiss nannies". Others say that the changes did not set in before the late 1930s, up to which time embroidery motifs local to certain villages could still be found. Geometric motifs remained popular in the Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
and southern regions, like the Sinai Desert.
Before the appearance of synthetically dyed threads, the colors used in Palestinian embroidery were determined by the materials available for the production of natural dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
s: "reds" from insects and pomegranate, "dark blues" from the indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
plant: "yellow" from saffron
Saffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
flowers, soil and vine leaves, "brown" from oak bark, and "purple" from crushed murex shells. Shahin argues that the colors used in Palestinian embroidery include the ancient color schemes of the Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ite and Philistine coast: red, purple, indigo blue, and saffron and that more recently, Islamic green and Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
black were added to the traditional palette.
Shelagh Weir, author of Palestinian costume (1989) and Palestinian embroidery (1970), demarcates embroidery distribution patterns in Palestine by painting two horizontal lines: the first running south of Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
and the Sea of Galilee
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
at the longitude of Afula
Afula
Afula is a city in the North District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley", referring to the Jezreel Valley. The city had a population of 40,500 at the end of 2009.-History:...
, and the second running north of Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
and south of Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
from the coast to the Jordan River. Her research indicates that in the area between these two lines there is very little history of embroidery, though there remains evidence of traditions of fine decoration, including braidwork and appliqué, in women’s costume. An Arab
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
proverb of this particular region, originally recorded by Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Dalman
Gustaf Hermann Dalman was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine, collecting poetry and proverbs.-Works:...
in 1937, went: "embroidery signifies a lack of work."
Longstanding traditions of embroidery were found in the Upper and Lower Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, and in the Judean Hills and on the coastal plain. Weir writes that cross-stitch
Cross-stitch
Cross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable evenweave fabric called aida cloth. The stitcher counts the threads in each direction so that the...
motifs may have been derived from oriental carpets, and that couching motifs may have origins in the vestments of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
priests or the gold thread work of Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
.
Northern Palestine
The basic wardrobe of the fellaheen woman in the Galilee consisted of the thob (robe) and libas (pants) with a jillayeh (coat), and a smadeh (hat with coins). Embroidery was used throughout this region. In the 1860s, H.B. Tristram
Henry Baker Tristram
The Reverend Henry Baker Tristram FRS was an English clergyman, Biblical scholar, traveller and ornithologist.Tristram was born at Eglingham vicarage, near Alnwick, Northumberland, and studied at Durham School and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1846 he was ordained a priest, but he suffered from...
described costumes in the villages of El Bussah
Al-Bassa
al-Bassa was a Palestinian Arab village in the British Mandate of Palestine's District of Acre. It was situated close to the Lebanese border, north of the district capital, Akko , and above sea level.-Name:...
and Isfia as being either "plain, patched or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes". As may be seen in collections today, satin stitch
Satin stitch
In sewing and embroidery, a satin stitch or damask stitch is a series of flat stitches that are used to completely cover a section of the background fabric...
, diagonal satin stitch, cross-stitch, stem stitch and joining stitch were popular in the Galilee.
During the 19th century, coats in the Galilee were produced using varying techniques and fabrics. Often coats were made of handwoven cotton with front sections decorated in a rich patchwork of silk or taffeta
Taffeta
Taffeta is a crisp, smooth plain woven fabric made from silk or synthetic fibers. The word is Persian in origin, and means "twisted woven." It is considered to be a "high end" fabric, suitable for use in ball gowns, wedding dresses, and in interiors for curtains or wallcovering. There are two...
appliqué
Applique
In its broadest sense, an appliqué is a smaller ornament or device applied to another surface. In the context of ceramics, for example, an appliqué is a separate piece of clay added to the primary work, generally for the purpose of decoration...
(heremezy) and ikat
Ikat
Ikat, or Ikkat, is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs a resist dyeing process similar to tie-dye on either the warp or weft fibres....
-dyed silk weaves, with back panels embroidered with silk thread in carpet-like designs of geometric motifs. While the basic garment pieces and construction were the same, the costumes donned by the Druze
Druze
The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...
of the northern Galilee wore more conservative due to their strict religious laws on modesty.
Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
costume had a distinctive style using colorful combinations of fabric. As an important trade centre with a flourishing souk
Souk
A souq is a commercial quarter in an Arab, Berber, and increasingly European city. The term is often used to designate the market in any Arabized or Muslim city, but in modern times it appears in Western cities too...
, items available in 1882 included a large choice of fabrics, from Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
and Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
silk to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
cottons and calicos. Garments were similar in construction to those in Galilee, with the wearing of both long and short Turkish
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
style jackets over the thob. For daily wear, thobs were often made of white cotton or linen, with a preference for winged sleeves. In the summer, costumes often incorporated interwoven striped bands of red, green and yellow on the front and back, with appliqué and braidwork popularly decorating the qabbeh.
Central Palestine
The hill country of Judaea in the eastern half of central Palestine encompassed four important towns: Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah and Bethlehem. Three distinct styles of Palestinian costume with embroidery as the major feature were produced here. Outside of the taqsireh worn on special occasions in Bethlehem, Turkish influence is less apparent in central and southern Palestine costumes than in the north.Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
costumes used a white linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....
fabric (roumi) for festive dresses and scarves, though in the winter, indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
-dyed linen was preferred. Embroidery was predominantly red cross-stitch in silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
thread whose contrast against the white linen gives Ramallah garments their stylistic distinctiveness. Ramallah was known for a great variety of distinguishable very finely executed patterns. The qabbeh panel was often a separate piece of cloth that was then stitched to the dress, and in some garments extended from the chest over the back and shoulders. Other features of Ramallah costume included sleeve embroidery and two vertical bands on the front and back of the skirt covering the seams with an embroidered shinyar panel fitted between the vertical bands on the back hem.
Popular Ramallah motifs included: the tall date palm arranged in horizontal rows, a rainbow design (qos), the leech (lalaq), the star (nujum) and "moon feathers" (qamar-ish). Motifs introduced by European missionaries and those derived from earlier Turkish and Greek influence were used as well, such as flowering plants, irises and birds. The smadeh was of a type that was once also worn throughout northern Palestine: a small roundish cap, padded and stiffened, with gold and silver coins set in a fringe. A long veil was pinned to the back, sometimes of silk and sometimes embroidered.
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
costumes and embroidery were popular in villages throughout the Judaean Hills and the coastal plain and the female embroiderers of Bethlehem and the neighbouring villages of Beit Jala
Beit Jala
Beit Jala is an Arab Christian town in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank. Beit Jala is located 10 km south of Jerusalem, on the western side of the Hebron road, opposite Bethlehem, at altitude...
and Beit Sahour
Beit Sahour
Beit Sahour is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority...
were known to be professional producers of wedding costumes. Bethlehem was a center for embroidery that produced a "strong overall effect of colors and metallic brilliance."
Less formal dresses in Bethlehem were generally made of indigo fabric with a sleeveless coat (bisht) worn overtop, made from locally woven wool. Dresses for special occasions were made of striped silk with winged sleeves, and the short taqsireh jacket, known throughout Palestine as the "Bethlehem jacket", was worn overtop. The taqsireh was made of velvet
Velvet
Velvet is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed,with a short dense pile, giving it a distinctive feel.The word 'velvety' is used as an adjective to mean -"smooth like velvet".-Composition:...
or broadcloth
Broadcloth
Broadcloth is a dense woollen cloth. Modern broadcloth can be composed of cotton, silk, or polyester, but traditionally broadcloth was made solely of wool. The dense weave lends sturdiness to the material....
, and was usually heavily embroidered.
Bethlehem work was unique in its use of couched gold or silver cord, or silk cord which was applied onto the silk, wool, felt or velvet used for the garment to create stylized floral patterns with free or rounded lines. This technique was used for "royal" wedding dresses (thob malak), taqsirehs and the shatwehs worn by married women. It has been traced by some to Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
, and by others to the more formal costumes of the elite of the Ottoman empire. As Bethlehem was a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
village, local women were also exposed to the detailing on church vestments with their heavy embroidery and silver brocade.
Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
and the surrounding villages of Beit Ummar
Beit Ummar
Beit Ummar is an Arab town located eleven kilometers northwest of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2007, the town had a population of 13,348 inhabitants. Over 4,800 residents of the town are under the age of 18...
, Bani Na'im
Bani Na'im
Bani Na'im is a Palestinian town in the southern West Bank located east of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate. The town had a population of 20,084 inhabitants in 2007...
, Beit Jibrin, ad-Dhahiriya
Ad-Dhahiriya
ad-Dhahiriya is a Palestinian city in the Hebron Governorate, 23 km southwest of the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, ad-Dhahiriya had a population of 28,776 in 2007.-History:According to Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H...
, ad-Dura and Samula produced some the richest and most beautiful forms of Palestinian embroidery. The fabrics used included handwoven linens, cottons and indigo-dyed silks cut in a manner similar to that of Ramallah dresses, often with long sleeves. The embroidered areas on dresses in the Hebron region were much larger and denser than those of Ramallah, with the sides and back also embroidered in vertical patterns.
The standard embroidery stitch was cross-stitch with fishbone used as a joining stitch. Dresses for special occasions used the heremezy technique, with triangular and diamond silk appliqué patches with significance attached to them as amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
s. The qabbeh was similar to the Ramallah style using the rainbow qos to determine composition. Motifs on the qabbeh would often be repeated on the shinyar of the skirt and included stars, triangles, grapes, cypress trees, and birds, among others.
Jerusalem never developed any indigenous style of costume, tending to borrow from local and international influences manifested in its cosmopolitan population. Major local influences on Palestinian garments donned in Jerusalem came largely from Bethlehem and Ramallah. Jerusalem dresses tended to be of the basic Ramallah style with decorative panels often embroidered in Ramallah, while using completely different fabrics from those traditionally used in the Ramallah district. A dress with quilt-like patches known as the thob abu qutbeh, "the dress of pieces", was made from long patches of Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
or Damascus silk or velvet (or in some cases, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n embroidered fabrics) with a Bethlehem qabbeh sewn onto the chest.
Lifta
Lifta
Lifta was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its population fled during the Arab-Jewish hostilities of 1947/48 and the efforts to relieve the Siege of Jerusalem . The village and spring for which it is named are now a park on the hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and...
(near Jerusalem), and Beit Dajan
Bayt Dajan
Bayt Dajan was a Palestinian Arab village situated approximately southeast of Jaffa. It is thought to have been the site of the biblical town of Beth Dagon, mentioned in the Book of Joshua and in ancient Assyrian and Egyptian texts....
(near Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
) were known as being among the wealthiest communities in their areas, and the embroidery produced in these towns was among the most artistic. Beit Dajan remained an influential centre of weaving and embroidery until 1948.
A popular motif was the nafnuf design: a floral pattern thought to be inspired by the locally grown orange trees. The nafnuf design changed after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
becoming embroidery running in long panels known as "branches" (erq). It is the forerunner of the "6 branch" style dresses worn by Palestinian women in different regions today.
The Jericho
Jericho
Jericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...
thob was extremely long, usually two to three times the height of the woman wearing it. The excess fabric was gathered up and pulled through a belt, so that it fell over in a fold, forming three layers. The air trapped in these folds was cooling in the Jordan Valley
Jordan Valley (Middle East)
The Jordan Valley forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. It is 120 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide, where it runs from Lake Tiberias in the north to northern Dead Sea in the south. It runs for an additional 155 kilometer south of the Dead Sea to Aqaba, an area also known as Wadi...
's exceedingly hot climate. The sleeves were so large that they could be thrown over the head as a veil, or used to carry objects. Despite these functional aspects, the amount of fabric used for the dress also spoke to status and exhibited the wealth of its owner.
Coastal plain
The central coastal plain extending from the base of the Judaean Hills to the Mediterranean seaMediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
was an agriculturally rich area, and towns in this region, like Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
and Majdal
Majdal
Majdal is a common place name in Syria and Palestine and can refer to:* Al-Majdal, Askalan, a village depopulated in 1948, now part of Ashkelon in Israel...
, used very little embroidery. Costumes instead featured the fabric itself, often made up of strong stripes of purple, magenta or green.
Gauze is reputed to have originated in Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
and transported to Europe by the Crusaders. Cloth for the Gaza thob was often woven at nearby Majdal. Black or blue cottons or striped pink and green fabric that had been made in Majdal continued to be woven in the Gaza Strip
Gaza Strip
thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...
by refugees from the coastal plain villages until the 1960s. Thobs here had narrow, tight, straight sleeves. Embroidery was much less dense than that applied in Hebron. The most popular motifs included: scissors (muqass), combs (mushut) and triangles (hijab) often arranged in clusters of fives, sevens and threes, as the use of odd numbers is considered in Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
to be effective against the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
. The heavy use of triangular motifs and designs with amuletic significance exemplifies the similarities in the styles and traditions of the southern fellaheen and the local nomadic Bedouin tribes.
Bedouin costumes
Bedouin in the Sinai wore costume modified for the desert environment, consisting of a thob, libas, and shambar as worn by the fellaheen, with the addition of a face veil, or burqaBurqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
. Besides offering protection from the elements, the burqa was used by Bedouin women to display wealth and status. Hanging from a narrow band at the forehead, the burqa covered the nose, mouth and neck areas. The basic thob here was cut fuller than that of the fellaheen, and the sleeves were either with narrow with no cuffs, or those of a long winged style called abu erdan. Usually made of heavy cotton, poplin
Poplin
Poplin, also called tabinet , is a strong fabric in a plain weave of any fiber or blend, with crosswise ribs that typically gives a corded surface.Poplin traditionally consisted of a silk warp with a weft of worsted yarn...
or sateen
Sateen
Sateen, not to be confused with satin, is a type of fabric often found in bed sheets.Sateen is usually applied to cotton, or sometimes rayon. Better qualities are mercerized to give a higher sheen. Some are only calendered to produce the sheen but this disappears with washing and is not considered...
, black was the preferred colour for fabric. Sinai and Negev Bedouin
Negev Bedouins
The Negev Bedouin are traditionally pastoral semi-nomadic Arab tribes indigenous to the Negev region in Israel, who hold close ties to the Bedouin of the Sinai Peninsula. The move away from their traditional lifestyle in modern times has led to sedentarization.Estimated to number some 160,000,...
women used the same brightly coloured embroidery cross-stich used throughout Palestinian villages.
The colour of the embroidery was highly significant: stitches in blue were used by young, unmarried women, and only after marriage or becoming pregnant were women permitted to adorn their dresses with red embroidery. Embroidery was focused not the qabbeh, but rather on the shinyar at the back of the dress which was decorated with heavily embroidered block-like geometric forms in dense cross-stitch. Shawls of black cotton or silk were worn for special occasions, with embroidery designs extending from the top of the head to the embroidered back panel of the dress down the centre. The village of El Arish combined Bedouin styles with those used in the Palestinian villages.
Post-1948
The establishment of the state of IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in the northern, western and southern parts of Palestine in 1948 severely disrupted Palestinian society and culture, and over half the rural population became refugees. Another wave of refugees
1967 Palestinian exodus
The 1967 Palestinian exodus refers to the flight of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians out of the territories taken by Israel during and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War including the demolition of the Palestinian villages of Imwas, Yalo, and Bayt Nuba, Surit, Beit Awwa, Beit Mirsem,...
was produced by the 1967 war and there is very little that remains of the costume and textile traditions of the 1950s and 1960s. Traditional costume made a resurgence after 1967, but in much plainer styles than before. Local weaving practices had largely ceased and without access to the same quality of imported fabrics, costumes became less ornate and more practical. Elaborate shambars and smadehs as well as the distinctions between everyday dress and formal wear were largely lost.
The highly evolved regional styles disappeared after the mass movement of village populations into the refugee camps. Certain general styles emerged such as the "6 branch" and the shawal, the latter designed originally for sale to Western markets. During the intifada
First Intifada
The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....
in the late 1980s, traditional costume was used as a means of passive protest and a way of expressing national pride. Embroidery produced by refugees in the camps which had served as a way of generating a stable income, has since been transformed into one of the most enduring elements of Palestinian cultural heritage.
Today, Palestinian costume styles no longer follow the traditional regional breakdown and can instead be classified as refugee camp styles, Palestinian Territories
Israeli-occupied territories
The Israeli-occupied territories are the territories which have been designated as occupied territory by the United Nations and other international organizations, governments and others to refer to the territory seized by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria...
styles, and Bedouin costume, with Bedouin costume retaining most of the elements of its traditional pre-1948 role. Western and Islamic dress are predominant in the styles of the Palestinian territories, though various forms of "traditional" embroidered dresses remain popular there, and in the Palestinian diaspora
Palestinian diaspora
Palestinian diaspora is a term used to describe Palestinians living outside of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip...
. However, what is now identified as "traditional" is often a much simpler garment in terms of construction and decoration.
Refugee camp styles
Samiha KhalilSamiha Khalil
Samiha al-Qubaj Salameh Khalil , also known as Umm Khalil, was a Palestinian charity worker as well as a prominent figure in Palestinian politics....
was one of the first to see the potential traditional embroidery and costume making could have in empowering Palestinian women, founding The Society of Ina'ash El-Usra in 1965 in al-Bireh
Al-Bireh
al-Bireh or el-Bira is a Palestinian city adjacent to Ramallah in the central West Bank, north of Jerusalem. It is situated on the central ridge running through the West Bank and is above sea level, covering an area of...
, West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
. Besides becoming one of the major modern-day producers of Palestinian handcrafts, the organization also has a museum of Palestinian costumes. In 1969, Serene Husseini Shahid
Serene Husseini Shahid
Serene Husseini Shahid was born in Jerusalem as a member of the influential Husayni family. Her father was Jamal al-Husayni, her maternal grandfather was Mayor of Jerusalem Faidi al-Alami, and her maternal uncle was Musa al-Alami....
and Huguette Caland
Huguette Caland
Huguette Caland, born in 1931, is a Lebanese painter, sculptor and fashion designer living in Los Angeles, noted for her nudes. Caland, whose father, Bechara El Khoury was the first president of Lebanon from 1943 to 1952, co-founded INAASH , which creates jobs for refugee women and sells their...
co-founded the Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps (INAASH) in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, which is devoted to preserving traditional Palestinian embroidery and assisting women and children in Palestinian refugee camps.
The "6 branch" style—named for the six vertical bands of embroidery that run from waist to hem—emerged in the 1960s and it was the first post-1948 style to evolve without being tied to an established regional style. It is characterized by its curvilinear foliage and flower designs and its various "branches of birds" motifs drawn primarily from European patterns. Perle cotton
Embroidery thread
Embroidery thread is yarn that is manufactured or hand-spun specifically for embroidery and other forms of needlework.Threads for hand embroidery include:...
thread was most popularly used, with multicoloured shaded threads being popular in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Refugees producing clothing for consumption by Western markets led to the development of the shawal style in the 1980s. A pre-embroidered uncut form made of heavy linen would have embroidery added onto the main fabric which was sold with a fringed shawl similarly worked. Geometric embroidery motifs and the saru remained common in these pieces. Although originally developed for the foreign market, the shawal also became populat among women in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and the occupied Palestinian territories as a kind of Palestinian haute couture.
Embroidery also developed as a kind of cultural form not solely restricted to costume in the 1980s, as aid projects in the refugee camps encouraged the creation of new products. One young woman from the Sulafa UNRWA embroidery project has said: "... we no longer embroider in the style of our towns, we embroider for our houses and for our work. We embroidered cushions, clocks and maps of Palestine. Embroidery is our heritage. We love embroidery ... and we are proud of it" (Price 2000 p. 17). Each refugee camp or aid organization has developed certain stylistic characterizations with time. For example, Christian imagery such as stars, mangers and Christmas trees appear as common designs on products from aid agencies such as Sunbula that enjoy church funding. Projects in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
such as those of Al-Badia are known for high quality embroidery in silk thread on dresses made of linen.
Islamic styles
Beginning in the 1970s, HamasHamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
and other Islamic movements sought to increase the use of the hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
(headscarf) among Gazan women, especially urban and educated women, and the hijab styles since introduced have varied according to class and group identity. New forms of Islamic dress, such as shari'a dress (plain long tailored overcoats worn with the hijab) have proliferated as well. Described by Reem Hammami as "an invented tradition in both form and meaning", Fadwa El Guindi notes that this kind of Islamic dress has "no precedents in indigenous Palestinian dress (Seng and Wass 1995), and explains it as, "[...] a movement developing in the context of occupation and resistance, subjugation and struggle, in which the hijab is ideologized and transformed into a symbol of resistance."
The Initfada: embroidery as national resistance
During the intifada, embroidered costume became a statement of national pride. According to one woman involved in an embroidery project "women of the new generation who are in universities wear thobs full of embroidery because it is their heritage ... even educated people are turning to their heritage" (Price 2000 p. 16). Sliman MansourSliman Mansour
Sliman Mansour , is a Palestinian painter, considered an important figure among contemporary Palestinian artists. Mansour is considered an artist of the intifada whose work gave visual expression to the cultural concept of sumud....
, known as an artist of the Intifada, depicted traditional Palestinian dress in his poster, Palestine.
A new style of shawal dress, known as the "flag dress", was made for a limited period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, featuring embroidery predominantly in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and other nationalist
Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people. It has roots in Pan-Arabism and other movements rejecting colonialism and calling for national independence. More recently, Palestinian Nationalism is expressed through the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
motifs such as the flag and map of Palestine, the Dome of the Rock
Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
mosque, gun
Gun
A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
s and grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
s, or the pattern of the keffiyeh
Keffiyeh
The keffiyeh/kufiya , also known as a ghutrah , ' , mashadah , shemagh or in Persian chafiye , Kurdish cemedanî and Turkish puşi, is a traditional Arab headdress fashioned from a square, usually cotton, scarf. It is typically worn by Arab men, as well as some Kurds...
, which were worked into the structure of the qabbeh and the vertical skirt panels, or the shinyar. Um Ahmed, a 75-year old woman from Beit 'Ummar explained that "people were being imprisoned for carrying the flag, so women would embroider it on their thobs" (Price 2000 p. 15). Um Ahmed created an embroidery motif called the Palestine design: "women made up the name during the intifada. When the women started this design, they said it would be called Palestine" (ibid, p. 39) The pattern resembled a flowery border rather than anything nationalistic, but Price suggests that even the political naming of embroidery motifs at this time could be perceived as an act of nationalist defiance. With the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada (Second Intifada)
Al-Aqsa Intifada
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Oslo War, was the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence, which began in late September 2000...
, women again wore these "flag dresses" as a sign of protest, though the actual production of such dresses in this style has declined.
In the mid-1980s, embroidered items produced by refugees were clearly marked with tags reading "Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i handicraft" in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, prompting Palestinians to incorporate "Palestine" calligraphy directly into the embroidery designs, with words like "Palestine", "PLO", "Abu Amar", and slogans such as "We shall return
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...
".
Costume collection, research, and display
In the second half of the 18th century, American and EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an travelers in Palestine began gathering costumes for collections, which paved the way for future exhibits and research. For example, the painter William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...
put together a collection now housed at the Royal Ontario Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...
. Holman relied on the costumes to depict what were described as "photographic and archaeologically
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
correct" Biblical scenes. Unlike some 'Orientalist
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
' painters who romanticized exotic dress, Holman Hunt is said to have painted it with "meticulous accuracy." Another painter of Biblical subjects at that time was William Hole, who collected Palestinian costumes and was advised by David Whiting, an expert collector of Palestinian village costume.
Foreign residents of the American Colony in Jerusalem played a central role in the collection and sale of local costumes. Notably, John Whitting (died 1951) left his collection to his daughter, Grace Spafford Whitting of the American Colony Hotel
American Colony Hotel
The American Colony Hotel is a luxury hotel located in a historic building in Jerusalem which previously housed the utopian American-Swedish community known as the American Colony.-History:...
, who subsequently passed on the costumes to the Museum of International Folk Art
Museum of International Folk Art
The Museum of International Folk Art is a state-run institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It is one of many cultural institutions operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs...
in Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. Meanwhile, in the early 20th century, members of the American Colony assembled a collection given to the Oriental Institute Museum
Oriental Institute, Chicago
The Oriental Institute , established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies.- History and purpose:James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum...
of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Not surprisingly, much of the historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
of the Palestinian costume has been based on such collections.
Palestinian costumes have also been preserved through less directly tangible means such as photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. The artistry of the costumes was captured and disseminated, for instance, through postcard
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
s from Palestine. According to Tim Jon Semmerling, such postcards diminished Palestinian identity since they "promote Orientalized portrayals
Orientalism (book)
Orientalism is a book published in 1978 by Edward Said that has been highly influential and controversial in postcolonial studies and other fields. In the book, Said effectively redefined the term "Orientalism" to mean a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the...
of Palestinians."
During the 1980s, there was a growing interest in Palestinian costume at international museums. Previously, most exhibitions of Palestinian costume and embroidery had been limited to displays organized by the PLO and other pro-Palestinian political groups. In 1989, the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
's Museum of Mankind held a major display of their Palestinian collection, curated by Shelagh Weir. According to Akbar Ahmed, the exhibit received an overwhelmingly positive response, though Weir was sharply attacked for what was seen as an attempt to project the Palestinian cause. Weir worked closely with private collectors, such as Widad Kamel Kawar, a Palestinian residing in Jordan. Kawar's own private collection also toured several European and Asian venues in the 1980s. The Palestine Costume Archive established its traveling exhibition program in 1995, and had five museum quality exhibitions and twenty smaller displays touring internationally by the early 21st century. The Archive tours Palestinian diaspora
Palestinian diaspora
Palestinian diaspora is a term used to describe Palestinians living outside of historic Palestine - an area today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories or the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip...
communities so as to sustain interest and knowledge of Palestinian culture.
In 1995, the Palestinian National Authority
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
issued a series of four postage stamps featuring women in Palestinian costumes.
In 2006, an international exhibit, Sovereign Threads, was showcased at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Organized by the Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
artist Huguette Caland, in cooperation with the INAASH association, Caland describes the motifs in Palestinian embroidery and costume as, "some of the most beautiful in the world [,having] influenced textile and fashion designers for years."
Public collections
- British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The British Museum holds over 1,000 pre-1948 items in its Palestinian costume collection. Though not on permanent display, highlights of the collection were featured in Shelagh Weir's major 1989 "Palestinian costume" exhibition. Weir's monograph remains the seminal publication on traditional Palestinian costume. - The Israel MuseumIsrael MuseumThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
in Jerusalem holds one of the most sizable collections of Palestinian costumes. In 1986-7, the Museum held a major exhibit, "Embroideries from the Holy Land" and, in 1988, published Ziva Amir's The Development and Dissemination of the Chest-Panel of the Bethlehem Embroidery. An art historian, Amir traces the development of motifs (e.g., the floral vase) and the geographic spread of styles. An Israeli, Amir worked closely with Palestinian locals in Gaza and the West Bank. - L. A. Mayer Institute for Islamic ArtL. A. Mayer Institute for Islamic ArtThe L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art is a museum in Jerusalem, Israel, established in 1974. It is located in Katamon, down the road from the Jerusalem Theater...
in Jerusalem houses a "wonderful collection" of Palestinian costumes and embroidery, among other exhibits devoted to Islamic art, jewellery, carpets, and clocks and watches dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. - Museum of International Folk ArtMuseum of International Folk ArtThe Museum of International Folk Art is a state-run institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It is one of many cultural institutions operated by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs...
(MOIFA) at Museum of New Mexico at Santa FeSanta Fe, New MexicoSanta Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. John Whitting acquired Palestinian items directly from the owners and noted down the provenance of each, thereby making the collection especially informative. There are many items from villages which were destroyed/depopulated in the Nakba in 1948, e.g. al-QubaybaAl-Qubaybaal-Qubayba was a Palestinian village, located 24 kilometers northwest of Hebron.-History:Known in Crusader times as Deirelcobebe, the ruins of the ancient Canaanite city of Lachish lay adjacent to the village, which was subject to extensive archaeological excavations by the British Mandatory...
, al-DawayimaAl-DawayimaAl-Dawayima was a Palestinian town, located northwest of the city of Hebron. It is identified with the Old Testament town of Bosqat. According to a 1945 census, the town's population was 3,710, and the village lands comprised a total land area of 60,585 dunums of which nearly half was cultivable...
, Bayt DajanBayt DajanBayt Dajan was a Palestinian Arab village situated approximately southeast of Jaffa. It is thought to have been the site of the biblical town of Beth Dagon, mentioned in the Book of Joshua and in ancient Assyrian and Egyptian texts....
, LiftaLiftaLifta was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its population fled during the Arab-Jewish hostilities of 1947/48 and the efforts to relieve the Siege of Jerusalem . The village and spring for which it is named are now a park on the hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and...
, Kafr Ana, Bayt JibrinBayt JibrinBayt Jibrin was a Palestinian Arab village located northwest of the city of Hebron. The village had a total land area of 56,185 dunams or , of which were built-up while the rest remained farmland.The early inhabitants of Bayt Jibrin are the Canaanites...
and az-ZakariyyaAz-ZakariyyaAz-Zakariyya or Zakaria was a Palestinian Arab village 25 km northwest from the city of Hebron in the District of Hebron, which was depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The village had a population of 1,180 on 15,320 dunums in 1945...
. The oldest items are traced back to the 1840s, while later examples include a wedding dress from Zakariyya (ca. 1930) and a dress from YattaYatta, HebronYatta or Yattah is a Palestinian city located in the Hebron Governorate on a high approximately 8 km south of the city of Hebron in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics it had a population of 48,672 in 2007....
(ca. 1910). - Palestine Costume Archive, in CanberraCanberraCanberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The Archive acquires, and holds in trust, Palestinian and Middle Eastern costumes on behalf of the proposed National Museum of Palestine. It holds costumes from the 18th century to the 21st, from many regions of Palestine as well as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Egypt and North Africa. The Archive is the only museum in the world to prioritize the acquisition and research of Palestinian costume after 1948. The Archive also holds a large collection of political textiles as well as contemporary costumes and embroideries from Palestinian diaspora communities. The Archive's collections tour worldwide. - Tareq Rajab Museum, KuwaitKuwaitThe State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
. Based on a private collection, this museum is open to the public and houses a significant Palestinian costume collection, as featured in Jehan Rajab's 1989 monograph Palestinian costume.
Private collections
- Widad Kawar Arab Heritage collection. The collection of Ms. Widad KawarWidad KawarWidad Kawar is an internationally renowned collector of Jordanian and Palestinian ethnic and cultural arts. She has amassed an extensive collection of dresses, costumes, textiles, and jewelry over the past 45 years, seeking to preserve a culture that has been largely dispersed by conflict...
. An important private collection now in AmmanAmmanAmman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, the Kawar collection of Palestinian and Jordanian dress toured extensively in the 1980s. - The Abed Al-Samih Abu Omar collection, Jerusalem. Private collection, mostly 20th century, featured in the book by Omar (1986): Traditional Palestinian embroidery and jewelry,
- Palestinian Heritage Foundation; The Munayyer Collection. The largest private collection in America, the Munayyer collection includes costumes from most Palestinian regions well known for distinctive costumes. The collection has been displayed in several American museums.
- Palestinian Heritage CenterPalestinian Heritage CenterThe Palestinian Heritage Center is a Palestinian cultural center located in Bethlehem. It was established in 1991 by Maha Saca. The center contains several exhibitions on Palestinian costumes, folklore, history, and other cultural aspects.-Sources:*...
, a cultural center located in Bethlehem, established in 1991 by Maha Saca. Has a collection of traditional costumes, some have been exhibited at the Oriental Institute, Chicago. - List of worldwide collections of Palestinian costumes, from Palestine Costume Archive
Designers
Palestinian dress designers, such as Leila Jeryas in AmmanAmman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, continue to explore traditional designs producing dresses with heremezy panels and saru motif cross-stitch since 2001. Other dresses are modern interpretations of traditional designs from Jericho
Jericho
Jericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...
and Salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
. The ANAT Workshop in Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
and the Family Care Society in Amman also produce "replicated" traditional dresses based on surviving pre-1948 designs, though "modernized dresses" they carry the traditional Palestinian characteristics and "the form and shape of the motifs as well as the patterns" can also be commissioned.
See also
- Palestinian artPalestinian artPalestinian art is a term used to refer to paintings, posters, installation art and other visual media produced by Palestinian artists.While the term has also been used to refer to ancient art produced in the geographical region of Palestine, in its modern usage it generally refers to work of...
- Palestinian literaturePalestinian literaturePalestinian literature refers to the Arabic language novels, short stories and poems produced by Palestinians. Forming part of the broader genre of Arabic literature, contemporary Palestinian literature is often characterized by its heightened sense of irony and the exploration of existential...
- Palestinian musicPalestinian musicThe music of Palestine is one of many regional sub-genres of Arabic music. While it shares much in common with Arabic music, both structurally and instrumentally, there are musical forms and subject matter that are distinctively Palestinian.-Pre-1948:...
Additional reading
- Allenby, Jeni (1995). Portraits without Names: Palestinian costume, Canberra: Palestine Costume Archive. ISBN 0-646-23303-3. (traveling exhibition catalog)
- Allenby, Jeni. (2002 onwards): Palestine Costume Archive website text
- Allenby, Jeni (2003). "Re-inventing cultural heritage: Palestinian costume and embroidery since 1948" in Proceedings of the 8th Symposium of the Textile Society of America, USA: Textile Society of America.
- Allenby, Jeni (2003). "Palestinian cultural heritage since 1948", Kalimat (Australia — English edition). Issue no.15. September.
- Amir, Ziva. The Development and Dissemination of the Chest-Panel of the Bethlehem Embroidery, The Israel Museum, 1988. (Hebrew)
- El Guindi, Fadwa (1999). Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. Berg Publishers. ISBN 1859739296
- El-Khalidi, Leila. The Art of Palestinian Embroidery London: al-Saqi BooksSaqi BooksSaqi Books is an independent UK publisher co-founded in 1984 by author and feminist Mai Ghoussoub to "print quality academic and general interest books on the Middle East". It now claims to be "the UK's largest publisher of Middle Eastern and Arabic titles"...
, 1999. - Fuller Museum (1995). Threads of Tradition: Ceremonial Bridal Costumes from Palestine: The Munayyer Collection. Brockton, MA: Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA. (exhibition catalog)
- Kawar, Widad and Weir, Shelagh (1975): "Costumes and Wedding Customs in Bayt Dajan" in Palestinian Exploration Quarterly, London, Jan / June
- Kawar, Widad Kamel with Tania Nasir. "The Traditional Palestinian Costume" in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1. (Autumn, 1980), pp. 118–129. (JSTOR)
- Omar, Abed Al-Samih Abu (1986). Traditional Palestinian embroidery and jewelry, Jerusalem: Al-Shark. (published to promote own collection for sale)
- Hafiz al — Siba'i, Tahira Abdul (1987). A Brief Look at Traditional Palestinian Costumes: a Presentation of Palestinian Fashion, T. A. Hafiz. English, French and Arabic text.
- Rajab, Jehan S. (1989). Palestinian Costume, London: Kegan Paul International. ISBN 0-7103-0283-5.
- Weir, Shelagh and Shahid, SereneSerene Husseini ShahidSerene Husseini Shahid was born in Jerusalem as a member of the influential Husayni family. Her father was Jamal al-Husayni, her maternal grandfather was Mayor of Jerusalem Faidi al-Alami, and her maternal uncle was Musa al-Alami....
(1988). Palestinian embroidery: cross-stitch patterns from the traditional costumes of the village women of Palestine, London: British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
publications. ISBN 0-7141-1591-6.
Further reference materials:
External links
Exhibitions:- Woven Legacy, Woven Language:
- Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing Exhibit at the Oriental Institute, ChicagoOriental Institute, ChicagoThe Oriental Institute , established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's archeology museum and research center for ancient Near Eastern studies.- History and purpose:James Henry Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum...
in conjunction with the PHC — PDF of exhibit catalog available for free online download here - Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans
Producers:
- Atfaluna Society For Deaf Children, GazaGazaGaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Embroidery, but also boxes, mirrors etc. - Friendship and Peace Society, a U.S. non-profit (a 501(c)(3)) Fair TradeFair tradeFair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
organization. Marked embroidery by skillful women from the Palestinian villages around HebronHebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
: Beit Kahel, Sum'ua, Yatta, Idna, Beni Naim, and others. All types of embroidery. - PACT; Palestinian Arts and Crafts Trust, run by AET; Sales in Washington DC., USA.
- Sunbula, a Jerusalem-based nonprofit Fair Trade organization.
- Hadeel, Fair Trade shop owned by Scottish Charity PalcraftsPalcraftsEstablished in 2003 Palcrafts is a registered Scottish charity limited by guarantee. Its primary purpose is the relief of poverty for Palestinian people by promoting their craft heritage and tragitional skills through education and through its trading arm Hadeel...
. - PHC; Palestinian Heritage Center, in BethlehemBethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
, West BankWest BankThe West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
(Takes PaypalPayPalPayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
) - INASH; Society of In´ash el-Usra, in al-BirehAl-Birehal-Bireh or el-Bira is a Palestinian city adjacent to Ramallah in the central West Bank, north of Jerusalem. It is situated on the central ridge running through the West Bank and is above sea level, covering an area of...
, West BankWest BankThe West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan... - INAASH; Association for the Development of Palestinian Camps, in BeirutBeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, LebanonLebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among... - An online Palestinian embroideries store, in Jerusalem
- Women in Hebron, in HebronHebronHebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
- Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans