Local tatreezer builds community through Palestinian embroidery
Traditional cross-stitch a way to share heritage and history, says teacher
Israa Alsaafin's face lights up as she drapes her silky thobe — a traditional Palestinian embroidered dress — onto a chair for her former students to admire.
The four women compliment its soft pink colour and intricate tatreez, or Palestinian embroidery design. It's an inspiration for the group, who gather to weave needles through cotton canvases, filling the room with conversation and laughter — a stark contrast to Alsaafin's early days learning tatreez alone through online classes.
Though Alsaafin grew up in a Palestinian home filled with tatreez decorations, she only became interested in learning the craft in her 30s, after a trip home in 2022 to Gaza.
"For me it was like, that's the old ladies' art. My mom tried to teach me, but I didn't learn," she explained.
Since returning to Ottawa, she has found strength in the very tradition she once overlooked, and now teaches it to a growing number of "tatreezers."
"When I started doing tatreez again and teaching, I realized it was my healing. It was the skill I used to get through this difficult time," she said.
The history of tatreez
Tatreez is a centuries-old folk art, traditionally passed down from mother to daughter, says Instagram artist and teacher Lina Barkawi, who is now teaching Alsaafin how to make her own thobe through a workshop.
"What's unique about tatreez is that Palestinians have an entire library of cross-stitch motifs that are very much unique to them. These motifs carry meaning related to the land, daily life and the relationships among the Palestinian people in historic Palestine," Barkawi explained.
Barkawi says she's fascinated by how tatreez reflects key moments of Palestinians' history. For example, following the 1948 displacement known as the Nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe," she says women from different villages, now living in refugee communities, exchanged designs and blended regional motifs to create thobes that told stories of their shared displacement.
Today, Barkawi says there's a new wave of tatreez artists like Alsaafin who are getting together online and in person to tell the Palestinian story through thread.
A trip to Gaza
Alsaafin says her interest in learning tatreez grew during her 2022 trip to Gaza, where the embroidery is woven into clothing, home furnishings and daily life.
She started collecting as many handmade tatreez pieces as she could, eventually struggling to close her suitcase.
Her mother laughed at the sight and pointed out Alsaafin could learn tatreez herself.
Back in Ottawa, Alsaafin enrolled in online classes with an instructor from Gaza, with the goal of making her own thobe. But when war broke out in Gaza in October 2023, she says her life took a different path.
On Oct. 13, 2023, her brother Ahmed Alsaafin was killed by an Israeli airstrike while fleeing from his home in northern Gaza with his wife and baby, who survived, according to Alsaafin.
Alsaafin said the loss pulled her away from everything, including tatreez.
"But then I saw an article talking about how tatreez is resistance, and how when you know your culture, you use it to represent your identity. That is your resistance," she said.
Slowly, an idea formed in her mind while she attended protests, vigils and other community gatherings.
"I realized people were saying, 'We want to learn, we want to see, we want to know,'" Alsaafin explained. "I thought, if I know something that could help people the way it helped me, I would teach them."
She soon began to organize workshops at her local library.
Finding community through tatreez
Alsaafin's friend Sara El Arbid, 40, said she wanted to learn tatreez after seeing online tatreez circles at the University of Ottawa pro-Palestinian encampment last spring.
For El Arbid, tatreez was also a tool to navigate her grief. Since Oct. 7, 2023, several of her family members have been killed, she said.
"When I started tatreez within this community, I had a safe space. I felt like I was seen and heard, and it really helped me, mentally, to put my hands to work," she said.
Student Rana Dakwar had never considered learning tatreez before the war.
"When you feel like your culture, your people,and your land are slipping away, you get to a point where you say, 'No, I want to hold on to my culture,'" Dakwar said.
She said she struggled to learn at first. Every X she stitched looked loose, almost like it was belly dancing. But she kept practising.
"I want to make sure that I'm holding onto my heritage, even if it's through stitching, even if it's through whatever little thing I can do," Dakwar explained.
Alsaafin continues to teach workshops and keeps in touch with former students, building what she calls a "little community of tatreezers." She looks forward to each lesson and gathering.
"I cherish these moments with the ladies because I don't have to explain myself. They know what I'm feeling," she said with a soft smile.
"I always see the arts as the place that gets people together, and maybe this is the door that I can talk about my identity with people."
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