Weaving to Reclaim the Bonds of Culture and Land

Located north of the Galilee Sea, the historic Palestinian town of Safad is nestled in green rolling hills and densely organized sandstone structures. Long known as an ancient fortress city, during the late nineteenth century both the town and district of Safad were noted for being central to the economic and cultural life of the Upper Galilee. Historian Mustafa Abbasi writes that “the inhabitants of the villages in this region were connected with Safad commercially and administratively. They came to the town to buy and sell, especially to the weekly market that took place every Friday.”22Mustafa Abbasi, “The Arab Community of Safad 1840-1918: A Critical Period,” Jerusalem Quarterly 17 (2003), 54.

Safad had been a bustling city in Palestine, one that also had an extended economic power throughout the Mashriq, especially to larger commercial centres in what is now known as Lebanon and Syria. However by 1948, the vitality of Safad and its environs abruptly halted. What is commonly known as the Nakba (or “the catastrophe”) unfolded over several months and saw the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starting in 1947. By May 10, 1948, the population of Safad was forcefully expelled—just days before the state of Israel was officially proclaimed on May 15.33Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020), 72.

In briefly mentioning the history of Safad, I want to emphasize the social, economic, and cultural importance of the region to Palestinian life. The events of the Nakba detrimentally changed not only the cultural and economic significance of Safad, and Palestine at large, but also the bonds people had between place and identity. For those who remained behind, the Nakba also took its toll. From the shrinking access to natural resources, lack of employment opportunities, and even legal disbarment from their ancestral homes, there is little doubt that the series of events that resulted in the Nakba has continued to make an impact on Palestinian lives and the bonds to their land, even today.44Over the past year, the El-Kurd family of Sheikh Jarrah have faced insurmountable challenges to the expropriation of their home. Most of their protests have been well-documented on social media and publicized by their numerous global followers.

At every step, Palestinians have resisted the expropriation of their lands and the reinvention of their cultural narrative. Within a generation, the lives of many families were dramatically altered and left unanchored. However, through the reconnection of material culture practices, this is slowly changing. A growth in Palestinian textile crafts in recent years can be credited to a number of grassroots initiatives such as Tatreez & Tea (led by Wafa Ghnaim and Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim), Handmade Palestine, and Sitti Social Enterprises. While these initiatives have primarily focused on the Palestinian embroidery technique of tatreez, other craft practices such as weaving have also emerged as a critical way to retain and reclaim cultural knowledge. To this regard, the collaborative project Weaving to Reclaim is a breakwall against the continued legacy of the Nakba. In mid 2020, Edmonton-based artists Fatme Elkadry and Fern Facette embarked on an endeavour which would eventually result in a collaborative, peer-to-peer project that would rekindle the traditional weaving practices of Palestine.

As Elkadry describes it, the connection to weaver Fern Facette was an easy one.55Fern Facette is the founder and operator of the Fern School of Textile Craft in Edmonton. Established in 2017, the school is a place where fibre artists can “meet to carry on the long tradition of sharing skills and knowledge.” For more on the school and the Weaving to Reclaim project, see: https://www.artfromhere.ca/artists/weaving-to-reclaim. They initially met in 2017, and then developed a reciprocal project that looks to strengthen the practice of loom weaving, while producing detailed study of the patterns used across Palestine. Of the patterns the duo has focused on, the Keffiyeh—an ancient meter scarf—holds the most symbolic value. Now seen as a symbol of Palestinian resistance (Intifada), the Keffiyeh was initially the material culture of the ancient elite and later broadly adopted “by peasants who wore it while working on the land to protect them from the sun, and sand, as well as to wipe their faces from the sweat, and in winter to protect them from the rain and cold.”66Handmade Palestine, “The History of the Keffiyeh: A Traditional Scarf from Palestine,” September 24, 2018, https://handmadepalestine.com/en-ca/blogs/news/history-of-keffiyeh-the-traditional-palestinian-headdress.

In many ways, Weaving to Reclaim is much more than a means to reconnect to the production of craft and material culture practices of Palestine. Through researching weaving practices, natural dyes, and patterns, Elkadry (a second-generation Palestinian-Canadian Safadi) quickly embraced an enthusiasm for weaving, but also learned that both treadle and ground looms had been commonly used in Palestine and that Safad had been a major hub for textile production. “Before European textiles began to flood the markets in the last part of the nineteenth century,” writes curator Shelagh Weir, “textile production in Palestine was a flourishing industry, and can be counted as one of the more important occupations of the townspeople.”77Shelagh Weir, Spinning and weaving in Palestine (London: The British Museum, 1970), 5.

Elkadry notes that “it’s an unceasing struggle to connect with my culture after decades of disconnection due to intergenerational trauma and displacement. […] I am here to reclaim those practices.”88Fatme Elkadry, @weavingtoreclaim Instagram Post, June 17, 2021. Weaving to Reclaim affirms the bonds severed by exile. Through the continued collective punishment of the Nakba, many Palestinians in the diaspora and at home have had to negotiate their bonds to their culture and land. This is a difficult connection, one that is consistently infringed upon, but also one that necessitates a continual affirmation through resistance and reclamation by Palestinians and allies.

I write this essay during the month of Ramadan: a time of fasting, reflection, and service for observant Muslims across the globe. And even now, worshippers at the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque are being attacked by Israeli soldiers with tear gas, sound grenades, and bullets. At no time in its short and brutal history has the Israeli settler state relented in their attempt to sever the bonds Palestinians have with their land. Weaving to Reclaim is a steadfast intervention to the ugliness of dispossession. With every movement of the treadle, Elkadry and Facette demonstrate that material culture can connect people to their ancestral histories and bridge the loss of the exodus of Palestinians in 1948. As the late Palestinian scholar Edward W. Said keenly noted, “facts do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain and circulate them.”99Edward W. Said, “Permission to Narrate,” London Review of Books 6, no. 3 (February 16 1984), https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n03/edward-said/permission-to-narrate. Weaving to Reclaim presents both the facts of Palestinian history, but with the tangible materiality of loom weaving. Here, in this narrative, Safad is remembered and celebrated for its material culture, but more importantly, reclaiming the practice of weaving reaffirms the bonds Palestinians have to the land.