This post was published in 2000.

The village of Hitteen, 8 kilometers east of Tibries, was located before 1948 at the end of a small valley on the northern slope of Hitteen’s Mountain.  

The village still occupies a commercial and strategic prominence because it is overlooking the Plain of Hitteen, which leads to the coastal depressions surrounding the Lake of Tabariyya (Tibries). It is linked westward with the plains of Lower Galilee. Commercial caravans and military invasions throughout historical ages used these plains and its eastern-western passages. 

In 1596, Hitteen was a village of 605 Palestinian residents, and was described in the nineteenth century by the Swiss traveler Burckhardt as a village of 400 people; its houses built of stones and encircled by trees of fruit and olives. 

Modern Hitteen used to comprise a small market; a school built in 1897 during the Ottoman rule and a mosque for its predominant Muslim population. It has been known by its religious shrine of Prophet Shuaib, revered by Druses who used to visit every April as a site of pilgrimage.  

The village was occupied on July 16/17, 1948, following the occupation of Nazareth by the Israeli Seventh Sheva Brigade, and its population was forced to cross the borders to Lebanon. None of Hitteen’s residents was allowed to return.  

In 1949, Israel established the Jewish colony of Arbil, north to the Arab village. One year later, the Jewish colony of Kfar Zeteem was established in the same site. Both colonies were built on the village’s confiscated land. 

Hitteen has survived in Arab minds and souls, as its two nearby hills were the old battlefield of the resounding and decisive Muslim victory, under the leadership of Saladin, over the invading crusaders in 1187. The battle of Hitteen paved the way for Saladin’s liberation of Jerusalem. 

The new Zionist invaders have built four colonies in the vicinity of Hitteen and erased from the area all Arab and Muslim remains of that great battle.

This post was published in 2000.

The village of Kawkab el-Hawa was located eleven km. north of Beisan in the Jordan Valleyoverlooking River Jordan from the east, and Lake Tabariya [Tibries] from northeast direction. This strategic position accorded it a historic significance.

Some scientists of Archeology have figured that Kawkab el-Hawa is the site of  “Yermota” as indicated by a thirteen century (BC)-old Egyptian monument found close to Beisan [Albright 1952: 28, n. 14]. The Bedouin Al Habero Tribes inhabited then that area (it should not be mixed between Yarmouta and the famous Canaanites royal city known as Yermok).

Presumably, the Roman Tower of Agrippina for sending signals was built at Kawkab el-Hawa. In this area, the Crusaders built Belvoir, one of their most famous castles, which was overlooking Jordan Valley and Lake Tabariya [Tibries].  Kawkab el-Hawa was the ground for a series of battles between Saladin and the Crusaders.

Historian Yaqout Hamawi (died 1229) says that Kawakab el-Hawa was a castle on a hill  close to Tabariya, and became ruins after Saladin. In 1596, Kawkab el-Hawa was a village of 50 strong in Lajoun’s District. Its population paid taxes [to the Ottomans] on many crops such as wheat, peas, beans, watermelon and grapes.

Since the village was built within the frontiers of Belvoir, its enlargement was slow, and it had in 1859 a population of 110. As time elapsed, houses were built encircling the castle, and the Moslem population cultivated their agricultural fields outside it. They cultivated in 1944/45 about 5839 dunams (four dunams equal one acre) for wheat, and 170 irrigated dunams for groves and orchards.

Its Occupation and Depopulation

According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris, a military attack was launched against Kawakab el-Hawa on May 16, 1948 in the aftermath of Beisan’s occupation. However, the History of the Hagana tells that the village was occupied on May 21, and the 3rd battalion in Golani Brigade carried out the operation. Moreover, the position of the village was ideal for the concentration of artillery’s battery for shelling the valley, which the village was overlooking, by the time of Iraqi forces appearance on May 15.

A platoon of Iraqi troops while attempting climbing to Kawkab el-Hawa became easy target to Israeli fires coming from the village. According to the Hagana’s story that its forces attacked the Iraqis from 50 meters high range. And when the Iraqis withdrew, their casualties numbered 30 men, and only three Israelis were wounded, according to that story.

But the Palestinian historian Aref El-Aref, has different story about what happened in the village. He says that the Iraqi force succeeded in dashing into the village, staying there for two days.Meanwhile the Israelis encircled it at the time the Iraqi forces were entering the country [Palestine] on May 15. The Iraqi garrison resisted for two days before its withdrawal. When the Israeli forces were ready to enter the village, the Iraqis arrived and seized the village till May 17. The AP reported from Baghdad on May 18, that the Iraqi forces occupied the village described as “ well-fortified and reinforced concrete site”. But  Aref says that the Israelis escalated their attacks on May 18, to relieve adjoining Gesher  settlement. And by sunset, the Iraqi decided to withdraw after sustaining 23 casualties.

Next day, the Israeli military high command proclaimed that its forces didn’t loose the village, but repulsed an Arab attack on Kawkab el-Hawa. The New York Times reported the Israeli statement, claiming that the Arabs had sustained 30 casualties.

On September 1948 a Kibbutz chief asked the Israeli authorities its permission and backing to destroy the village and three other villages in the region. Benny Morris said nothing on whether the permission was granted or not [M: 168].

The village has been wiped out. But archeological excavations have been conducted at the site of Belvoir. The slopes of once-was Kawkab el-Hawa, overlooking Beisan and Al Baireh’s Valley are used by the Israelis for grazing cattle.
Bibliography:

–All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 byKhalidi, Walid

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Baysan/Kawkab-al-Hawa/index.html

Before 1948 this southern Palestinian village was situated 30 km to the north east of Gaza at the hub of roads leading to major Palestinian cities including Hebron, Jerusalem and Jafa. Al Faluja acquired paramount significance in Palestine’s 1948 war following the siege of an Egyptian army Brigade there by Jewish forces. One of the besieged Egyptian officers was Gamal Abdel Nasser, later the leader of July 23, 1952 revolution and the future Egyptian President.

During al Faluja-four-month-siege—which stretched from late October to February 1948— Nasser found time to create the Free Officers’ Movement, which toppled, four years later, the corrupt regime of King Farouq.

Al-Faluja’s name became thereof a cause celebre in Egypt and the Arab World after 1948 although the village itself was depopulated.

Both al-Falouja’s population and the Egyptian brigade were trapped until February 1949 when the ‘ Faluja pocket’ was handed over to Israel as a result of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement. Some 3,140 Palestinian villagers were reported to be actually trapped in the encampment. But no one of those Palestinians was allowed by the invading Israelis to remain in al-Faluja.

During the relatively lengthy siege, the Palestinian residents of Faluja were keen to supply the trapped Egyptian troops with provisions at their disposal. Many of them had the opportunity to be acquainted with Nasser and some of his colleagues from the Free Officers.

It is reasonably enough to believe that the future Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had had at al-Falouja his first touch with the 1948 Catastrophe of Palestine.

Within days of the Egyptian forces’ departure, the Israeli invaders dashed to the village and embarked on beating and robbing the civilians. United Nations observers at the scene reported attempts of rapes.

Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett personally reprimanded the Israeli army’s chief of staff for the acts committed by the Israeli soldiers against the population. He said that in addition to overt violence, the army conducted  a “ whispering propaganda” campaign among the Arabs [of al-Faluja], threatening  them with attacks and acts of vengeance by the army, which the civilian authorities  will be powerless to prevent. There is no doubt that there is a calculated action aimed at increasing the number of those going to the Hebron Hills as if of their own free will, and if possible, to bring about the evacuation of the whole civilian population [of the pocket].

According to the Israeli historian BennyMorris the decision to cause the exodus of the “ Faluja pocket” population was probably approved by Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

The Village Today

The foundations of the village mosque and fragments of its walls are all that remain of al-Faluja.

The Israeli town of Qiryat Gat was established in 1954 on the lands of Iraq al-Manshiyaa between that village and al-Faluja; it has now spread into the lands of al-Faluja as well. Four more settlements were established two years later on village lands.

Bibliography:

 –All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 by Prof. Walid Khalidi

http://www.palestineremembered.com

Of the 418 Palestinian towns and villages, destroyed or depopulated in 1948 and after, some 48 lay in 

the Negev area; 3 in the Beersheba District, and 45 in the Gaza District.

In the Beersheba District, the villages of al-Imara (El Imara), al-Jammama (Jammameh) and al-Khalasa (El Khalasa) constitutes the doomed Palestinian villages. But in the Gaza District, among the 45 wiped-out Palestinian villages, the towns and villages of al-Faluja, Iraq Suwaydan and Iraq al-Manshiyya have entered history for two reasons: –

The ferocity of the battles which took place between the Egyptian army and the Israeli invaders, first; and the presence of many prominent young Egyptian officers, including Major Gamal Abdul Nasser, later the Egyptian President and the Pan-Arab nationalism’s hero, who battled the Israeli invaders and resisted the ensuing siege of Egyptian troops at al-Faluja Pocket; a siege that turned out to be a case of great embarrassment to Cairo and other Arab capitals.

Many Jewish settlements and factories were to be built after 1948 by the newcomers to commemorate these battles at which Nasser and his compatriots had taken part.
Within hindsight, the Israeli press began reporting, in the wake of the second uprising against occupation, on the dwindling fortunes of the Negev’s colonies and industrial establishments, which were built in the aftermath of the 1948 war. For example, Ha’aretz reported last year a telling story about the laying off of hundreds of workers from a factory of clothes, which was built in the early 1950s to commemorate the “ defeat of Nasser’s army”, in the words of Pinhas Saphir, then Israel’s minister of industry. Saphir drove a Chilean millionaire in the early hours of a summer day in 1950s to a remote spot in the Negev in an attempt to fool the latter that he was driving him to a suburb of Tel Aviv. Failing to convince his interlocutor in the first trip, he drove him to the same destination again asking him to build the factory there. When the businessman hesitated to have an industrial establishment be built in the desert, Saphir ordered him on behalf of Ben-Gurion this time to go ahead with the project, saying not far from here the Israeli army had defeated Colonel Nasser’s army and we want to commemorate this historic event. In fact the collapsing Israeli economy has been highlighted lately by endless press reports; it became a worry-some issue in the election of January 28, 03.

Notwithstanding the outcome of the Negev’s battles of 1948, the going developments in occupied Palestine in the wake of the Palestinian Intifada against occupation had its roots in the catastrophe of 1948. In retrospect, it is worthwhile touring the Negev Triangle of 1948 ahead of the systematic destruction of 48 Palestinian towns and villages.
When Ben-Gurion ordered in 1948 the Israeli army to break through the triangle of the Egyptian forces encircling the Negev from three sides, these forces in Palestine were grouping in three blocs, which each one had been stationed on one side of the triangle in charge of certain task: –

Firstly, the western side, paralleling the Mediterranean coast and extending from ‘Rafah’ and ‘Majdal’ crossing Gaza was manned by the main bloc of the Egyptian army led by the commander in chief of the Egyptian forces in Palestine, Major General Mohammad Ahmad El Mawawi as of the beginning of the operations until October-then removed from his post leaving it to General Ahmad Fuad Sadeq, who arrived on 20 October to the HQ in El Areesh (behind Rafah).

The force was composed of 11 infantry battalions backed by three artillery battalions and engineering units, as well as signal and administrative. In fact it is difficult to make serious valuation of it, as the most of the formations were incomplete– some of which were no more than organizational skeletons, which lacked officers and soldiers, as well as adequate arms and ammunition and means of transport.

Secondly, the second –eastern-side of the Egyptian military triangle, south of Palestine, was within the domain of the volunteering forces, which had taken part in the war ahead of the Egyptian Army. It walked from ‘Ouja’ to ‘Aslouj’ to ‘Beersheba’ and ‘Hebron’; its vanguard arrived in the outskirts of Jerusalem. The volunteers were a military force, but, however, very difficult to describe with scientific or even descriptive accuracy.

These forces–as indicated by its name– comprised soldiers (many of them were Muslim Brothers) who volunteered to fight in Palestine, or officers, filled with zeal, had been ordered to volunteer. And when this occurred, it was believed that their force was all what Cairo had in mind for Palestine, as the entrance of the Egyptian army was not decided upon yet.
As for the Prime Minister ‘Mahmoud Famy al-Naqrashy’, sending the volunteers was enough to absolve Egypt from further responsibility towards Palestine. But he was overwhelmed by a royal decision for Egypt to enter the war.

However, it turned out that the volunteers had penetrated deep, reaching the Jerusalem’s outskirts. Notwithstanding the fact that they did not take part in big battles, their speedy advance gained them a resounding reputation, especially that their leader was the highly respectable and inspiring officer, Qaem Maqam “Ahmad Abdul Aziz”. However, the reputation of this force and the character of it leader were to face a real danger, because of its speedy advance to the extent that its logistic lines had extended for 80 km.

Thirdly, the third side of the triangle of the Egyptian forces was the so- called line of the north Negev; this side in fact was the wide base of the turned over triangle; it extended from Beit Jibreen, to transverse the central Negev up to the Majdal.

Adapted mainly from Walid Khalidi’s All That Remains:  The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948

Our village was situated strategically on a hill at the junction of the al-Ramla-Jerusalem highway with other highways that led to Gaza and Ramllah. This location lay just south of an ancient Roman road that ran from the Mediterranean coast through Emmaus/’Imwasand up the mountains to Jerusalem. Because of its proximity to this road, the site of al-Latrun had strategic importance. Its name may have been derived from the phrase Le Toron des Chvaliers (“ The Tower of the Knights” in Old French), which was the name of a castle built on the site by the Crusaders between 1150 and 1170. Salh al-Din al-Ayyoubi (Saladin) captured the castle in 1187. Migrants from neighboring [Palestinian] villages moved to al-Latrun during the [Ottomani] governorship of Mustafa Thurayya Pash (1852-62). In the late ninteenth century, al-Latrun was a small, mud-brick village built within the walls of the Crusader castle. Frnech Tappist monks built a monastery cum agricultural school on a slope near the village in 1890 that became famous for its vineyards. During the British mandate it was classified as a hamlet by the Palestine Index Gazetteer.

Al-Latrun’s population was predominantly Christian. This strategically located hamlet, which controlled the Jerusalem-Jaffa road, was the scene of a long series of battles in the course of the war. Six separate Israeli attacks were launched to capture the al-Latrun salient between mid-May and mid-July 1948. The first attack, during Operation Makkabi by Giv’ati Brigade for a brief period on 16-17 May, according to the History War of Independence. This occurred while the ArabLiberation Army was in the process of handing over its position to the Arab Legion. However, al-Latrun was regained by Arab forces [ under the inspired leadership of Abul Qader al-Husseini].

On orders from Ben-Gurion who decided on the occupation of Jerusalem, a new Israeli attempt was made to capture al-Latrun, but this attempt was repulsed by the Arab Legion, which inflicted heavy casualties upon the Israeli forces. The New York Times stated that Arab Legion units rushed to the area to participate in the twenty-four-hour battle on 25-26 May. The fierce fighting later spread to the nearby Palestinian villages. Another Israeli attempt was made on 30 May, but it was repulsed again even after the Israeli units reached al-Latrun police station in a bid to demolish it.

The New York Times quoted the Israeli commander of the attack that his units had left the village badly burned and its police station gutted.
Upon their failure twice to recapture the strategic Palestinian hamlet, the Israelis concentrated on finding an alternative route to Jerusalem, by bypassing al-Latrun. Consequently, “Burma Road,” rejoining the road to Jerusalem at the village of Saris was hastily built, but proved insufficient for military purposes. However, a fourth Israeli attempt to occupy al-Latrun was made during the night of 8-9 June. But the attacking Israeli brigades of Har’el and Yiftach were repulsed and driven back again by units of the Arab Legion.

A fifth Israeli attempt to occupy al-Latrun took place in the wake of Operation Dani on 15-16 July after the end of the first truce, which was imposed on the Arabs by the Security Council and gave the Israeli a precious ten days (July 8-18, 1948) to rearm. [For example, three B-17s bombers purchased by the Haganah in the United States had been flown Czechoslovakia to be outfitted and armed. On July 15 they set out for Israel, ordered to bomb Cairo and other Egyptian targets on the way, according Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims as reproduced from HaAretz, July 16, 1848].

As the second truce drew near, the commander of Operation Dani decided to focus on al-Latrun. He intended to isolate the village from its hinterland and attack from the east. Once again the Israeli forces were driven back and their desperate attack failed, sustaining nineteen casualties in a fierce confrontation wit the Arab Legion, according to the official Israeli version.
Nonetheless, a sixth and final Israeli attempt, just before the second truce on July 18, involved a direct frontal assault by units of the Yiftach Brigade. The Israeli forces were equipped this time with a number of armoured vehicles, including two Cromwell tanks that had been dispatched from the northern sector. However, technical difficulties with one of the tanks led to the failure of this attack. Two days into the second truce, a 20 July New York Times dispatch stated that al-Latrune had been completely surrounded by Israeli forces. But it remained accessible from Arab-held territory, being linked by the road to Ramallah. On August 10, United Nations mediator Count Folke Bernadotte announced that Arab Legion forces had withdrawn from al-Latrun, after having controlled for many weeks. He did not mention the cause of the withdrawal. The following day, Bernadotte ordered Israeli forces to withdraw from Hill 312 on the al-Latrun-Ramallah road because the position had been occupied after the truce was proclaimed.

The History of the War of Independence states that Israel was granted the right to use the al-Latrun-Jerusalem road in the armistice agreement with Jordan. As a result the old al-Latrun became part of the West Bank and severed as a camp for the Jordanian army, whereas the new al-Latrun fell in the no-man’s-land. The of al-Latrun moved to the neighboring village of Immwas, on the West Bank. Their houses remained empty until 1967, when al-Latrun was occupied by Israel during the June War.

* All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 by Walid Khalidi.

Israeli occupation date: July 24, 1948. It was a Palestinian village located  21 kilometers south of Haifa. The village was depopulated in 1948 and as a result of an Israeli military assault, the village was completely destroyed. ‘Ayn Ghazal inhabitants were mostly expelled eastward to Jinin (West Bank).

According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village remaining structures on the village land are:
“The dilapidated shrine of Shaykh Shahada is the only standing structure on the village site. Ruins of walls and piles of stones can be seen all over the site, as well as stands of pine, cactus, and fig and pomegranate trees. ”

The number of houses was listed 247 in 1931. Ayn Gazal had two schools; the 1^st was an elementary school for boys, which was founded by the Ottomans in 1886, and the 2^nd school was an elementary school for girls.

Land ownership before occupation

Source: Palestineremembered.com

Widad Kawar is an internationally renowned collector of Palestinian and Jordanian ethnic and cultural arts. She was born in Tulkarem but grew up in Bethelem. Widad received her education in the Ramallah Quaker School. She studied at the American University of Beirut.

Ramallah and Bethlehem, both considered significant cultural heritage centers in Palestine, had a tremendous impact on Widad as a young girl.

During some vacations at her mother´s town Widad began to appreciate the nature of Palestinian village life in the 1940s. She started to learn about costumes and embroidery and she felt in love with that art. In the time she spent in Aboud, every day after lunch many women got together and embroider.

With the time she got married and settled in Jordan where she volunteered in Hussein and Wihdat refugee camps. Widad was a member of the YMCA as well as the Women’s Auxiliary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a special body created after the Palestinian exodus in 1948.

The war of 1967 was an extraordinary human drama and Widad and all the Palestinians saw Palestine occupied. She began to collect geneuine pieces before they were lost or influenced by the new life in the refugee camps.

She collected marriage dresses, cushion covers, home decorations, weaving, pottery, handicrafts, belts, head covers jewelry and straw work.

After the war she began to meet women in different villages and cities in Palestine and she understood the way their roles had changed with the occupation and their position in the family, their attachment to their heritage and their endurance to keep a family together under that situation.

The women whose heritage Widad has collected remain her inspiration. They have honored her by sharing their sad and happy memories of the past with her. They inspired her to pass on their rich cultural heritage to future generations.

Actually, Kawar is known as Umm l’ibas al-falastini—the mother of Palestinian dress.

She has amassed an extensive collection of dresses, costumes, textiles, and jewelry over the past 50 years, seeking to preserve part of the heritage of Palestine. Kawar´s collection is the largest to date of Palestinian traditional dress and accessories comprising more than 3,000 items.

She has made her collection available for public viewing and has mounted exhibits of Palestinian dress around the world.

For her each item fo her collection calls to mind an individual: a wife, a mother, a daughter, a family. Each item reminds her of a place: a village, a town, a house, a market. Each item was worn on special occasions by a special person.

She has written many books on Palestinian embroidery. Recently, she collaborated with Margaret Skinner on A Treasury of Stitches: Palestinian Embroidery Motifs, 1850–1950(Rimal/Melisende). Widad is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Center for Oriental Research.

Her latest and most important book is Threads Of Identity a history of Palestinian women told through aspects of popular heritage, focusing on traditional dresses but also including textiles and rug weaving, rural and urban customs, jewellery, cuisine, and festivities. The interviews with women who lived through the traumas and changes of the 20^th century are a contribution to oral history, augmenting standard historical accounts. While most writing about the Middle East concentrates on politics, her book focuses on the dignity of ordinary people, and women in particular, bridging the gap between the major events of history and everyday life. With this book Widad Kamel Kawar pays homage to Palestinian women.

After years of collection, she recently established Tiraz, a home for the largest collection of Arab dress, containing over 3,000 costumes and weavings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Her dream now is to develop the center and keep the traditions of embroidery alive.

Each piece belongs to a particular time, a particular tribe or village, with an individual story to tell.

Tiraz is a place to exhibit and combine these stories for the public in Jordan and the Middle East, as well as for cultural centres and institutions around the world. To be celebrated and understood, and collection must be seen and experienced.

Words alone cannot capture the spirit and immediacy of the embroidered patterns; the sensitivity, diversity and the richness of their forms.

Tiraz will curate, describe and explore these forms, expressed in the seams of each garment, in a way which historians and visitors from all over the world will come to appreciate, and remember.

Awards

• Directorate of Heritage Award of the Government of Sharjah, 2014
• Prince Klaus International Award for culture and development, 2012
• Jordan Tourism Medal for her role in organizing the Seville World Expo, 1992
• King Hussein Medal, 1993
• Medal for Jarash Festival, 1986

List of Publications

The list below includes authored publications as well as contribution towards publications, especially exhibit catalogues.

• Threads of Identity: Preserving Palestinian Culture and Heritage – Amman, Jordan [2011]
• Contribution to BERG Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion Volume Four on Central and South West Asia [2010]
• Bethlehem: From Golden Threads to Cement Blocks – Amman, Jordan [2005]
• Cultural Treasures of Jordan [2001]
• Palestinian Embroidery, Traditional Fallahi Stitch. With Tania Nasir. National Ethnic Museum -Munich, Germany [1992]
• Costumes Speak. With Sally de Vries. Jordan Magazine – Washington, United States
• National Costumes of Jordan. The Art of Jordan. Museum of Mersyside – Liverpool, England
• 2000 Years of color. Kawar Collection and Mosaics of Jordan. Moesgard Museum – Aarhus, Denmark [1991]
• Memoire de Soie. Institute du Monde Arabe – Paris, France [1988]
• Pracht Und Geheimnis. Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum – Munich, Germany [1987]
• Costumes and Wedding Customs in Bayt Dajan. With Shelagh Weir. [1984]
• Weaving in Jordan – Amman, Jordan [1981]
• Costumes Dyed by the Sun – Tokyo, Japan [1982]

 Exhibitions

Some of the items of her big collection

Hebron

 Jaffa

 Gaza

Head Cover Jerusalem                                                       Head Cover Galilee

Bracelets                                                                                                    Necklaces

Cross Stitch

Pottery

 Weavings

Sources:

– http://www.arabheritage.org

– http://tirazcentre.org

Further readings:

-Presentation of 2012 Prince Claus Award to Widad Kawar

http://www.princeclausfund.org/es/news/presentation-of-2012-prince-claus-award-to-widad-kawar.html

– Widad Kawar – Every Dress Tells A Story

http://beamman.com/historic-and-cultural/1085-widad-kawar-tiraz

Yasser Barakat is a Palestinian collector and designer who owns The Yasser Barakat Gallery in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Barakat is a native Jerusalemites, graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He started collecting Palestinian dresses and artwork when he was 19 years old. His passion for Palestinian embroidery is one of the reasons why he collected and preserved this heritage from all regions of Palestine.

The gallery was established in 1972 and offers a wide range of old Palestinian artwork, David Roberts lithographs (original 1840s and 1850s pieces), steel engraving and maps from the 16th and 17th centuries. Additionally, there is a magnificent collection of Persian, Turkish, Afghani and Palestinian carpets.

In his search for Palestinian artwork, Barakat grew to understand that embroidery is being lost and neglected. He wanted to do something about it, and created a studio to collect Palestinian dresses and jewellery.

To this day, Yasser continues to search for and buy unique Palestinian artwork wherever he can find it in order to safeguard the history of Palestinian embroidery and artwork.

Barakat believes that each piece of Palestinian embroidery contains a story and heritage. Each dress holds a story behind it, and Yasser can spend hours explaining the meaning behind every piece of embroidery, describing the village in Palestine it came from and the meaning behind each piece. Within its stitches and colours lays stories of Palestine that need to be propagated.

He explains that these pieces were typically done on either black or white linen dresses, which had triangular sleeves and whose length reached the floor.

The embroidered area included a square chest piece, front and back lower panels and side panels running down from the waist. Each colour is chosen with care and with an attention to the meaning it conveys. For example, when embroidery uses green, it is meant to symbolise growth; yellow stands for harvest; brown for earth; blue against the evil eye; and black for widows.

Every woman had the chance to express her creativity with her choice of colours, patterns and fabrics, but generally each area in Palestine had its own distinct embroidery rules.

The dresses were accessorised with headpieces (veils) and each area and village wore different hats. Each hat contained different stitches and silver coins, depending on how wealthy the woman was. Some hats even contained gold coins to denote their wealth.

Women’s accessories also included bracelets, necklaces, nose rings and anklets. Jewellery often had names engraved on it and contained different artwork, depending on the area it came from.

Yasser not only collects Palestinian artwork but he also design and offer art pieces in a newer and preserved manner. All pieces are done with Manjal stitch around the borders, which holds the embroidery and highlights its beauty. The embroidery styles come from dresses and jewellery from all regions of Palestine.

He is doing a great job because old dresses that are ruined and neglected are fixed up, worked on and preserved on newer fabrics and in unique framings.

The gallery offers Palestinian dresses embroidered between the 1890s and the 1930s. All dresses are pure silk embroidered and naturally dyed. The dresses originate from all regions of Palestine, including a variety of Palestinian cities and villages. Dresses were produced for many different occasions such as weddings, everyday dress, and festive/special events.

Palestinian wedding headdresses also tell unique stories and depict different regions of Palestine. Historically, the headdress was a part of the woman’s dowry and the amount of silver or gold on the headdress added to the total amount of the dowry. Each headdress resembles the area it came from such as Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah. The headdresses were made in these big cities and then worn in the surrounding towns and villages.

We can find as well table runners, cushions, wedding pillows, wall hangings, bags and clutches, wallets and glasses cases.

Some items of his collection

Front Piece

 Dress

 Wedding Pillow

 Headdress

Source:

www.yasserbarakatgallery.com

Further readings:

– The Yasser Barakat Collection of Palestinian Embroidery Preserving Palestines Heritage and Art

http://archive.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=1029&ed=93

– This Week in Palestine, 27 Feb 2014, “The Yasser Barakat Collection of Palestinian Embroidery Preserving Palestine’s

http://www.fashionembroidery.co.uk/features.php#row1