Israel · Fine-Art-Adjacent Workshop Craft (paper craft)
No single standardized Hebrew term documented beyond general reference to Jewish papercutting
The cutting of paper into intricate decorative designs, a popular Jewish folk art practiced for hundreds of years. The first apparent documented reference to Jews practicing papercutting is credited to Rabbi Shem-Tov ben Yitzhak ben Ardutiel, in 1345, who recounted in his work The War of the Pen against the Scissors that when his ink froze during cold winter nights, he cut letters into paper instead of writing them. Jewish papercuts became widely popular by around the seventeenth century, when wall-hung papercuts commonly indicated the direction of Jerusalem needed for prayer, and served additionally as holiday decorations, protective amulets, and calendars; papercuts also adorned Jewish marriage contracts (ketubot) and commemorated deaths, most featuring traditional symbols including rampant lions, Stars of David, candelabras, and floral motifs. Jews living in Muslim countries were familiar with papercutting even before it became popular in Christian Europe; among the Jews of Poland, the art was particularly popular during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, until the Second World War, practiced predominantly by men, many of whom were Yeshiva students, before declining sharply with the dissolution of major Jewish centers in Europe. Contemporary Israeli artist Archie Granot, born in London in 1946 and settled in Jerusalem since 1978, has directly credited discovering the craft in 1979, when his daughter brought home a paper-cut image made at school; unlike traditional practitioners who typically use scissors, Granot's chosen tool is a scalpel, working in multiple layers of paper to create richly detailed, contemporary abstract compositions, describing his own position as standing 'very firmly in two worlds' -- contemporary art practiced within a Jewish folk-art tradition. His decade-long project, The Papercut Haggadah, comprising 55 individual works in which all elements, both text and design, were cut entirely by scalpel, was commissioned by patrons Max Thurm and his wife Sandra and has been exhibited internationally, including at the Yeshiva University Museum, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA), St. Louis. Granot's work is held in major public collections including the Jewish Museum (New York), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University Museum, and, within Israel, the Presidents' Residence, Bar Ilan University, Hebrew University, and the Israel Museum.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not independently inscribed
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