Sunday, June 08, 2008

Palestine Kufiyas


Kufiyas, Jerusalem
Originally uploaded by tsweden
As of Friday, I'm in the land of the (Palestinian) kufiyas. Kufiyas are for sale (mostly to tourists) all over the Old City of Jerusalem. My photo shows a typical display. Unfortunately for local producers, almost all the kufiyas you see for sale are made in China. As per an earlier post, there is only one remaining kufiya manufacturer in Palestine, in the city of Hebron. I hope to visit the factory sometime in the next couple of weeks.

As it's summer, you don't see many Palestinians wearing kufiyas, just older men, presumably from the villages, who wear them in the traditional way, as headgear. I did spot one woman in Islamic dress, who was wearing a kufiya as a scarf. A friend of mine tells me that young Palestinian don't in fact wear them as scarves or headgear anymore. He claims that they've adopted US style baseball caps (in Texas we used to call them 'gimme caps') that say things like UCLA or NY Yankees.

For more of my photos of tourist kufiyas go here, here, and here.

To see more of my photos from my Palestine trip, go here, or click on my flickr site in the right hand column.

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