Israel · Gemstone / Mineral / Mining
No single standardized Hebrew term documented beyond general reference to the craft
The cutting and polishing of diamonds in Israel, an industry that preceded the establishment of the State of Israel itself, first proposed in 1908 as a potential incubator project for Jerusalem's newly founded Bezalel Art Academy, though the Ottoman regime's refusal to waive import customs duties on diamonds for training purposes caused the idea to be dropped at the time. In 1932, a group of Belgian Jews immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine specifically to establish a diamond-polishing plant, founding the industry's true beginning; the Israel Diamond Exchange was first officially founded in late 1937 in preparation for the impending war, with the Shimshon Building, its permanent Ramat Gan headquarters, inaugurated in 1968. Eliyahu Eshed, a seventh-generation Israeli born in Jerusalem in 1922, began working as a diamond cutter at just sixteen years old in 1938, training under named masters Carol Pickle and later Sam Moed in Tel Aviv, before joining the Bukhara Diamond Cooperative in 1942 as director of its cutting department; over the following decades, Eliyahu personally taught the skill of diamond cutting to many others, and was formally recognized as a Diamond Industry Dignitary in 2006. In 1965, his eldest son, Avraham Eshed, a ninth-generation Israeli and second-generation diamond expert, joined his father to establish a diamond-polishing factory in Netanya, which at its peak employed thirty cutters; Avraham's business survived the disruption of the 1982 Lebanon War before relocating operations to Ramat Gan, which had by then replaced Netanya as Israel's primary diamond city. Avraham went on to found Eshed Diam and Gemstar, receiving Israel's Outstanding Exporter award in 1977 and again in 1989 from the late President Haim Herzog, and became a founding shareholder and director of Sarine Technologies, established in 1988 as a pioneer in developing optics- and laser-based instruments for diamond measurement, planning, and cutting -- the first Israeli company to be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. As of 2016, Israel cut and polished over 20 percent of the world's diamonds, with net rough and polished exports reaching $7.4 billion that year; approximately 80 percent of Israeli-processed diamonds are sent to the United States, supplying roughly half of all diamonds purchased there, and the Israel Diamond Exchange stands today as officially the world's largest diamond exchange.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not independently inscribed
The hand-dipping and shaping of beeswax and paraffin candles into swirling layers of color, braided forms, and symbolic motifs, a craft the mystical city of Tzfat (Safed) has been associated with for decades, directly inspired by the…
The cold-pressing of olive oil across Israel's Galilee and Golan Heights, alongside the traditional preservation of labane, an Arab spread cheese most traditionally formed into small spheres and kept in olive oil for extended shelf life in…
The hand-weaving of rugs from wool sheared from local sheep, produced by Bedouin women of the Negev desert on homemade looms, sustained today through the Lakiya Negev Weaving Project, a community-based initiative documented in the book…
The cutting of paper into intricate decorative designs, a popular Jewish folk art practiced for hundreds of years.
The hand-forming, glazing, and painting of ceramics and decorative tiles in a distinct Armenian style, made by artisans of Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter and directly documented as one of the city's most iconic crafts.
The twisting of impossibly thin, pure silver threads into intricate filigree jewelry -- amulets, beads, bracelets, rings, and necklaces -- a technique for which Yemenite Jews became internationally famed, developed over centuries in Yemen,…
The hand-axe extraction of salt blocks from Lake Assal, Africa's lowest point (155 meters below sea level) and one of the saltiest lakes on Earth, by Afar and Issa salt workers of Djibouti's Afar Rift.
The Orissan stone carving tradition is one of the most accomplished sculptural lineages in world art history, responsible for the erotic and devotional sculptural programs of the Konark Sun Temple, the Lingaraj Temple (Bhubaneswar), and…
The direct hand-carving of figurative and abstract sculpture from serpentine and related stones by the Shona people of Zimbabwe, a tradition with roots stretching back more than a thousand years to the construction of Great Zimbabwe…
The Irish dry stone walling tradition — the building of the distinctive Irish field walls without mortar (particularly the Burren limestone pavements and the Aran Islands gray limestone field system) using the specific Irish random rubble…
Emboscada, founded in 1740 by governor Rafael de la Moneda as San Agustín de la Emboscada and formally known today as 'Ciudad de la Piedra' (City of Stone), has built its craft identity directly on its own quarries, where the majority of…
The carving of elaborate wooden entrance doors by artisans of Stone Town, Zanzibar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose architecture fuses Swahili, Arab, Persian, Indian, and European influences.