Cave of Machpelah and Tomb of Rachel Tapestry. Jerusalem, Torah ve-Melakhah (“Torah and Crafts”) Weaving House, ca. 1900–1920

Produced in the weaving workshops of the Torah ve-Melakhah (“Torah and Crafts”) school in Jerusalem, this rare textile is a testament to the city’s early Jewish arts-and-crafts industry at the turn of the twentieth century. Under the guidance of Avraham Albert Antebi (1870–1919), the Alliance Israélite Universelle–affiliated institution fostered a thriving weaving department staffed by master craftsmen from Damascus and dozens of Yemenite and Persian artisans. Its machine-woven carpets—distinctive products of a unique Jerusalem aesthetic—formed one of the earliest sustained Jewish textile traditions in Ottoman and Mandate Palestine.

This example presents an unusually ambitious composition, depicting two of Judaism’s revered pilgrimage sites: the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Cave of Machpelah) in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem. Each holy site is flanked by the figures of Moses and Aaron and labeled below in Hebrew. The textile is further embellished with Magen David and crescent imagery, characteristic of the school’s output. This artistic scheme reflects not only local devotional geography but also the influence of contemporary Orientalist visual culture circulating in Jerusalem at the time.

At the center of the rug appears a striking image of the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, set within a stylized sunburst motif radiating outward. This symbolically charged centerpiece unifies the composition, linking the ancestral burial sites to the covenant at Sinai. The surrounding decorative border—echoing motifs found in other early Jerusalem weavings—incorporates floral and vegetal ornamentation that recall Ottoman prototypes while remaining distinctly tied to the emerging Hebrew visual vocabulary of the period.

Together with the related “Rachel Our Mother” design, this carpet stands among the earliest woven expressions of Jewish sacred topography produced in Jerusalem, offering a compelling window into the artistic, devotional, and communal life of the Jewish community in early twentieth-century Palestine.

 Woven wool; 160 x 153 cm.

LITERATURE

Ofrat, Gideon. The First Beginning: "Torah u-Melacha". Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly / 2008 PP. 4-13.