Hebron glass (Arabic: زجاج الخليل, zajaj al-Khalili ) is glass made in Hebron, Palestine, where there has been a strong glassmaking tradition since Roman times in Syria Palestina, with its origin going back to the older Phoenician glass industry. The Old City of Hebron still contains a quarter named the "Glass-Blower Quarter" (Arabic: حارة القزازين; Haret Kezazin) and Hebron glass continues to serve as a tourist attraction for the city. Traditionally, the glass was melted using local raw materials, including sand from neighboring villages, sodium carbonate (from the Dead Sea), and coloring additives such as iron oxide and copper oxide. Nowadays, recycled glass is often used instead. Glass production in Hebron is a family trade and art, the secrets of which have been preserved and passed down by a few Palestinian families who operate the glass factories located just outside the city. The products made include glass jewelry, such as beads, bracelets, and rings, as well as stained glass windows, and glass lamps. However, due to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of the West Bank, glass production has suffered a decline.
History
Glass-making has a millennia long history in the region of Palestine. In the Amarna letters, the rulers of city-states in Palestine and Lebanon mention their export of raw glass materials to the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Artifacts of the glass industry in Hebron have been dated to period of Roman rule in Syria Palestina . As the ancient Phoenician glass industry shrank from the exposed cities along the eastern Mediterranean coastline, the industry migrated inland, to Hebron in particular. Glass artifacts from Hebron dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries have been found, and are on exhibit as part of the Drake Collection. Stained glass windows made of Hebron glass dating to the 12th century are found in the Ibrahimi Mosque, which served as a church during the Crusader era in Syria Palestina. Another example of stained glass windows produced in Hebron are those adorning the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem. "Hebron's medieval reputation in glassmaking is corroborated by some of the many Christian pilgrims who visited the city over the centuries. Between 1345 and 1350, Franciscan friar Niccolò da Poggibonsi noted that "they make great works of art in glass." In the late 15th century, the friar Felix Faber and his companions also stopped in this "exceeding ancient city," and he described how "we came forth from our inn, and passed through the long street of the city, in which work-people of divers crafts dwelt, but more particularly workers in glass; for at this place glass is made, not clear glass, but black, and of the colors between dark and light." While acknowledging that the production of glass in Syria Palestina dates back to Roman period, Nazmi Ju'beh, director of RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation, contends that the practices of today's glass industry in Hebron most likely emerged in the 13th century CE. This corresponds to what foreigners observed, like Jacques de Vitry who around 1080 mentioned Acre and Tyre, (but not Hebron), as glass-producing cities, while by 1483, when Felix Fabri visited the city, he described passing "through the long street of the city, in which work-people of divers crafts dwelt, but particularly workers in glass; for at this place glass is made, not clear glass, but black, and of the colors between dark and light." Ju'beh notes that an alternate theory assigns today's techniques to the Venetian glass tradition and that still other researchers claim they were already extant at the time of the Crusades and were carried back to Europe from Hebron, possibly originating in Syria. Glass produced by these factories were typically functional items including drinking and eating vessels, as well as olive oil and later petrol-based lamps, although the factories also produced jewelry and accessories. Bedouins of the Negev, the Arabian Desert, and Sinai were the primary purchasers of jewelry, but large exports of expensive Hebron glass items were sent by guarded camel caravans to Egypt, Syria, and the Transjordan. Marketing communities of Hebron glass were established in al-Karak (Crac) in southern Jordan and Cairo in Egypt by the 16th century. The glass industry was a principal employer and a generator of wealth for its owners. Well known for glass production throughout the Arab world, Western travelers to Ottoman Palestine in the 18th and 19th century provided descriptions of the Hebron glass industry as well. For example, Volney in the 1780s, wrote that: "They make there great quantity of colored rings, bracelets for the wrists and legs, and for the arm above the elbows, besides a variety of other trinkets, which are sent even to Constantinople." Ulrich Jasper Seetzen noted during his travels in Ottoman Palestine in 1807–1809 that 150 persons were employed in the glass industry in Hebron, while C.J. Irby and J. Mangles visited a glass lamp factory in Hebron in 1818, and were told the lamps were exported to Egypt. Later in the century, the production declined due to competition from imported European glass-ware. However, the products of Hebron continued to be sold, particularly among the poorer populace, particularly by travelling Jewish traders from the city. At the World Fair of 1873 in Vienna, Hebron was represented with glass ornaments. A report from the French consul in 1886 suggests that glass-making remained an important source of income for Hebron with four factories making 60,000 francs per annum. The tradition of glassblowing continues in the 21st century in three factories located outside of the traditional quarter of the Old City, north of Hebron and south of the neighboring town of Halhul which generally produce functional household souvenirs. Two of the factories are owned by the Natsheh family. These are displayed in large halls close to each of the factories. Hebron glass is an attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists. Today, however, due to ongoing export problems, the decline in tourism, and restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement in the aftermath of the Second Intifada, industry production has suffered. According to Nazmi al-Ju'bah, the director of RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation, under these circumstances, the survival of the Hebron glass industry is in question.
Production
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