Weaving Straw Stools: An “Artistic Escape” and Homage to a Family and Levantine Tradition

The centuries-old Levantine craft of woven straw stool-making is slowly making a comeback in Jerusalem with the help of a Jerusalemite heritage-based artist, Tala Sandouka, whose two grandfathers worked in straw stool-making and carpentry. Straw stools are a characteristic of traditional Arab homes and cafés throughout the Levant, which is why their colloquial nickname is “café stools.”1 With the move toward modernism in furniture and interior design over the years, their market slowly disappeared. While only a few shops remain open in Palestine today, their popularity is on the rise once again.

In Jerusalem, Mahfouz Sandouka, Tala’s distant cousin, was the last remaining straw stool-maker who learned the craft from Tala’s grandfather, Faisal Sandouka. Tala’s family owned two carpentry shops in Khan al-Zeit in the Old City of Jerusalem and a stool factory in Amman, Jordan, that exported most of its products to Jerusalem up until 1967 when the two cities became separated after Israel occupied East Jerusalem. In 2019, Tala arrived at weaving straw stools in her artistic journey and learned the craft from Mahfouz, reviving her family heritage.

For Tala, weaving straw stools is a means of “preserving cultural heritage and identity, through which we can introduce unique new things.” Tala emphasized that working with an old traditional art practice doesn’t limit her relevance: “We don’t need to be stuck in the past. Rather, we can use it to build our future.”2 The cultural and artistic scene in Jerusalem was the “weakest link and the worst hit when Israel’s war on Gaza began in 2023,” she said. Thus, Tala hopes that the straw stool-making workshop she organized this month in Jerusalem’s Old City will contribute to a much-needed cultural movement in Jerusalem.

She plans to offer more such workshops in the near future.

The Jerusalem Story Team attended the workshop and came away with new appreciation for this traditional type of furniture-making.