Palestine · Textile / Basketry
Majdalawi (from Al-Majdal, also Majdal Asqalan, the fabric's town of origin)
A distinctive handwoven cotton fabric, prized for its bold stripes, rich sheen, and fine craftsmanship, originally produced in Al-Majdal (Majdal Asqalan, present-day Ashkelon), a coastal Palestinian town whose textile market thrived on locally grown cotton and citrus before 1948, when the town was depopulated and its population displaced, many to Gaza. Unlike the exclusively female tradition of tatreez cross-stitch embroidery, Majdalawi weaving is specifically documented as woven by a male weaver on a single treadle loom, combining black and indigo cotton thread with fuchsia and turquoise silk thread; in women's clothing, the fabric traditionally decorated the qabbeh (chest panel), sleeves, and hem, marking both elegance and cultural identity. Palestine counted more than 300 weavers across its historic textile centers -- Safad, Nazareth, Galilee, Nablus, Beit Jala, Hebron, and Gaza -- before 1948; today almost all have gone. Within Gaza specifically, the tradition has been sustained through a cultural preservation project run by Atfaluna Crafts, a vocational training organization employing hearing-impaired adults, alongside the Arts and Crafts Village in Gaza City, though a shrinking, aging network of weavers in both Gaza and Amman has struggled to pass the specific technique on to a new generation. One named-but-protected Gaza weaver, a son of refugees from the historical northern Gaza region where the tradition originated, directly described his own practice as an act of memory: 'When I weave Majdalawi, I bring back the streets of Al-Majdal.' Following the escalation of conflict in Gaza beginning in October 2023, this specific weaver's home and loom were both destroyed and remain buried in the ruins of what was once his neighborhood, and he has since been internally displaced within Gaza; a separate weaver has begun practicing the craft from exile in Cairo. In the West Bank and wider diaspora, women's cooperatives, including the Ramallah-based clothing brand Nol Collective, have worked directly with remaining weavers to repurpose Majdalawi fabric into modern designs for younger generations, while cultural organizations continue documenting the technique to help ensure its survival; most Majdalawi fabric available on the market today is, by necessity, handwoven in Syria rather than Palestine itself.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Covered within the 2021 inscription of Palestinian embroidery and weaving practices on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
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