Zionist craftsmen treated Eastern carpet-making as a simple skill stripped of its cultural meaning

Evidence

With utter disregard for the symbolic significance and various uses of carpets in Eastern cultures and for the complexity of traditions, knowledge, and skills involved in their creation it was argued that “there was a technical aspect that could easily be learned together with some artistic guidance in color and design.” Hence a carpet-weaving department, the first of the Bezalel workshops, was opened, as proposed, in May 1906, a couple of months after the school opened. At the opening of this department, so the story goes, only forty-five happy women and girls were accepted while four hundred were not admitted and remained tearfully at the door. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 594

Categorization

• XREF: Zionist appropriation of oriental handicraft parallels the wider Orientalism-in-Zionism thesis of the book; also connects to themes of colonizers extracting craft knowledge while erasing its meaning.
• SHARE: Someone interested in Zionism’s economic program would enjoy this concrete case of how Bezalel’s founding idealistic story masked a reality of poverty-driven female applicants.