The kuffiya is worn across Palestine, but it has been woven in al-Khalil. The city's long standing as a place of craft, of glass, leather, pottery and cloth,…
The kuffiya is worn across Palestine, but it has been woven in al-Khalil. The city's long standing as a place of craft, of glass, leather, pottery and cloth, is what put the looms here, and the Hirbawi factory is the last workshop in the country still making the scarf where it belongs. A Palestinian cloth, woven in Palestine The black and white scarf became the outward sign of Palestinian identity through the twentieth century, worn in the villages before it was worn anywhere else. For most of that century it was made locally, and al-Khalil was the centre of that production. From the 1990s onward, cheap imported scarves took over the market, and one workshop after another in the city closed. Kuffiyas sold in Palestine and abroad today are, in the great majority, made elsewhere. The last looms Yasser Hirbawi set up his factory in al-Khalil in the 1960s and for five decades was the only Palestinian manufacturer of the kuffiya, working sixteen looms. In 1990 all sixteen were running and turning out around 750 scarves a day; by 2010 only two were in use, producing about 300 a week. The factory weaves in pure cotton, without the synthetic blends of the imported cloth. Izzat Hirbawi, the founder's son, has put the case for it plainly: the kuffiya is a tradition of Palestine and should be made in Palestine. Demand has risen sharply in recent years, beyond what the workshop can supply. The looms, the thread and the hands are the same ones that have always been here, and that is the point of the place.