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Israeli Embroidery Embroidery allows the artist to create images on fabric using only a needle and thread. It is one of the mediums used in ancient traditional artifacts and even in modern art. Every culture has own unique embroidery characteristics, but certain stitches and motifs made their way around the world and are common to all cultures. In the Arab culture in Israel, women embroider clothing, indicating their skill and tradition, personal expression, and collective identity. Embroidery features prominently on Judaica items such as the embroidered curtain on the synagogue ark, the Torah cover, the Talit bag and the Mezuzah cover. In the Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel prior to the State, people saved embroidered greetings as a way to maintain their ties to Jews in the Diaspora. Students at Bezalel studied embroidery as a practical art and after the State of Israel was founded, popular embroidery was seen to represent the rebirth of Hebrew culture in Israel. Today, there is a rich embroidery culture among diverse communities in Israel, as art, as an expression of personal identity or as a unique community narrative. Yemenite Embroidery WIZO, 1950’s. Courtesy of the Rose Textile and Fashion Archive, Shenkar, contributed by Amos de Shalit from the estate of Tamar de Shalit. In Sanaa, Yemen, embroidery was a Jewish vocation, in the same way that Jews were expert silversmiths. The women mostly embroidered by orders received from Jews and Muslims. When the Yemenite Jews immigrated to Israel, to Eretz Israel, the traditional embroidery transitioned to a more modern style. They mostly embroidered clothing for holidays and ceremonies, for men, women, and children, such as tunics and dresses, leggings, and head coverings. Most of the embroidery was around the neckline of the garments, continuing down the front to the hemline. The inspiration for the semi-circular embroidery around the neck was the dripping pattern that characterized Jewish women’s clothing in South Yemen, influenced by ornate neck jewelry as well. Embroidery stitches like the running stitch, chain stitch, ladder stitch and cross-stitch, based on images of plants or animals, were simplified, with the stitches appearing in repeating rows and shapes of stars or roses. From the 1920’s, organizations such as Shani, WIZO and Maskit initiated a business model of selling homemade embroidered items in their shops. Research and modern writing describe Yemenite embroidery as a traditional Jewish folk craft that became a vocation and a symbolic image of renewed Jewish handicraft in the Zionist Yishuv in Eretz Israel. Yuval Etzioni, researcher of Textile Culture in Israel To all philatelic items issued on February 2024
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