The Bezalel economic plan rested on Palestine’s sacred status more than on market analysis

Evidence

It seems that the economic base of the proposal relied not so much on rational analysis as on the spiritual and metaphysical status of Palestine as the Holy Land, especially as it developed and was perceived during the nineteenth century. Moreover, the emphasis in the Bezalel program on producing handicrafts for souvenirs was based on an existing tradition. The nineteenth century witnessed the production in Jerusalem of decorative and religious objects from olivewood and other materials for the pilgrim, tourist, and export markets. Jewish craftsmen competed for their share of these markets. According to some sources, by the 1870s there were about a hundred Jews working in olivewood souvenirs in Jerusalem. In goldsmithing, too, Jewish craftsmen gradually dominated the market in Jerusalem, and needlecrafts were entirely the provenance Jewish women. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 592

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the economic history of souvenir economies and to how sacred geography economically valorizes a place — parallels pilgrimage economies elsewhere.
• QUESTION: How did the olivewood souvenir trade’s structure compare to other colonial pilgrimage craft economies, and did the Zionist project consciously adopt an Ottoman-era commercial niche?