Fashion creator Nomai Hadba, 26, is one of a growing number of young Arab designers in Israel reimagining tatreez, a centuries-old traditional art form of cross-stitch embroidery, for the new generation.
Hadba was interviewed in a cozy studio tucked behind his parents’ home in the Arab village of Meiser in the Wadi Ara region, about 50 km. north of Tel Aviv. The space is crowded with sewing machines, paper patterns, and contemporary garments.
Here, he incorporates the traditional geometric motifs of this cross-stitch technique, which is a symbol of Palestinian cultural identity, into contemporary ready-to-wear garments. Rather than altering the traditional embroidery itself, Hadba focuses on presenting it in new ways.
“Let’s preserve it because beauty is in the culture of the people of the past,” said Hadba, pointing to an orange two-piece outfit from his men’s collection embroidered with traditional tatreez motifs.
“As a designer, I prefer for the embroidery itself to remain constant. I might present it differently by playing with the cut of the fabric rather than changing the stitch,” he said.
Arab citizens make up about 20% of Israel’s population. For some Arab Israeli artists and designers, tatreez has become a way to navigate a complex identity while preserving a cultural tradition passed down through generations. While they hold Israeli citizenship, many also maintain deep family, cultural, and historical ties to Palestinian heritage.
For Hadba, that connection begins with his own family history.
“As an Arab person, I saw a need, truthfully… where am I from?” he said. “If I go back and ask, who is my grandfather? Who is my grandmother?
“My grandfather’s mother was born in 1929. She was here. I can’t erase the fact that she was an inhabitant of Palestine. Being Arab – and in my identity, I’m not Syrian or Lebanese – I am here, and my origin is Palestinian, so I will simply use Palestinian embroidery,” he continued.
Hadba is not alone.
Ahd Hammad, cofounder of Darza Studio, a slow-fashion brand that works with Palestinian embroiderers in refugee camps across the West Bank, focuses on upcycling heritage garments to reach new audiences. Hammad reinterprets old thobes, a traditional, ankle-length embroidered dress handcrafted and worn by women.
“We buy old Palestinian thobes and take specific parts from them, such as the collar or sleeves, and incorporate them into jackets,” said Hammad, 32, explaining how modern design can preserve historical fragments. She said Darza was created to preserve a heritage that she believes is disappearing little by little.
“I am preserving part of the thobe and giving it new life,” she said, adding that many people are surprised by how much history is woven into the embroidery itself.
“The Palestinian thobe was not just decoration,” Hammad explained. “It included stories about the women who wore it.”
She also noted that the idea of embroidery being strictly women’s work is a misconception.
“Historically, men also embroidered and wore embroidered items. Today’s youth have become more aware of this history and are thinking about how they can preserve it, whether by learning it and passing it on to their children and grandchildren.”
Behind the stitch
Historically, tatreez was most commonly associated with the traditional embroidered dress worn by Palestinian women. Based on the motifs, patterns, and design, each dress could instantly reveal a woman’s age, social status, and marital condition.
“Every region has its own embroidery,” said tatreez expert Sabreen Anabtawi, over Arabic coffee in a café in Haifa. “Ramallah uses symbols like the palm tree. Jaffa used the orange blossom because they were surrounded by orange groves. Every region is unique.”
Other examples of these local designs changing from town to town include Hebron, which was famous for tight geometric and flower patterns, and Gaza, which was known for its unique cypress tree shapes.
When women married and moved to new villages, they brought their hometown stitches with them, mixing the different styles naturally, explained Anabtawi.
Colors were just as important as the patterns.
“If a woman were single, her dress was bright red,” said Anabtawi. “If her husband passed away, she added blue stitches. When she was ready to marry again, she would take out the blue threads to show that her mourning time was over.”
Today, this old color system is showing up in modern fashion but with new meaning. For example, fashion designer Hadba has used blue embroidery in his 2026 menswear line, bringing a color once tied to mourning into everyday modern clothing.
Growing in popularity
Hadba and Darza Studio are just two of many designers modernizing tatreez in Israel. Others driving the movement include Natalie Tahhan in luxury wear, Meera Adnan and Nol Collective in casual streetwear, and Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury and Ayham Hassan, who use the craft to share cultural stories on global stages.
“It used to be exclusively on the thobe [traditional gown],” said Anabtawi, who has worked with Palestinian embroidery for more than 30 years, “but now it has moved to modern dresses. It moved into the home, onto cushions… and now shawls. It didn’t remain exclusive to one thing; it expanded.”
The expansion includes contemporary fashionwear, menswear, accessories, in artwork, on shoes, furniture, and even international museums and art shows.
This growing visibility has sparked a wave of interest among young people eager to learn the craft. Workshops are popping up in cafés, cultural institutions, and community organizations across Haifa, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Ramallah.
During a recent workshop at the Arab Culture Association in Haifa, women of different generations sat side by side, carefully following printed patterns. What appeared to be a simple cross-stitch exercise quickly revealed itself as a lesson in patience; a single mistake meant undoing several rows of work.
“People really want to learn this craft now because they understand we must preserve it,” said Hammad, who also serves as marketing coordinator for the Arab community at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. “It connects them to heritage, but it also separates them from the fast pace of life. For two or three hours, people disconnect from everything else.”
Political symbol
While tatreez is often described by Palestinians as a symbol of political resistance, the designers and artisans interviewed for this article say that for them, it is simply a way of preserving history, culture, and identity.
“At one stage, I felt that embroidery was seen as a political symbol that might be dangerous to use,” Hadba said. “But it’s not like that. It is simply a culture and an identity I am using to express myself. It is identity before it is politics. If art isn’t what divides us, then expressing an opinion through art shouldn’t cause friction.”
Embroidery expert Anabtawi also recognized that tatreez is often claimed as a political symbol but said that preserving the art means preserving identity. She described “resistance” (muqawama) not as a political act, but as keeping the tradition alive.
“Through tatreez, how do you resist? You resist by keeping it alive, by preserving it, and by passing it down,” said Anabtawi, based in Haifa. “That is the real resistance – that it stays present, that I do not erase it from my memory. I don’t want people to misunderstand ‘resistance’ as if I am doing something wrong. On the contrary, I am preserving my identity 100 percent.”
Anabtawi added that tatreez is far more than a traditional embroidery technique, pointing out that “if it disappears, our identity disappears.”■
This report was written as part of the ‘Art of Journalism’ workshop at the School of Communication, Reichman University.