Fair Trade Judaica (FTJ)

Fair Trade Judaica promotes fair trade as a Jewish value through educating the Jewish community, and expanding the production, distribution, and sale of fair trade Judaica products. We envision a world in which Jewish consumers recognize fair trade as an expression of core Jewish values, seek out fair trade Judaica products, and use their purchasing power to support thriving communities of artisans around the world.
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You are here: Learn > The Story Behind MayaWorks' New Tallit > The Story Behind MayaWorks’ New Purple Tallit

The Story Behind MayaWorks’ New Purple Tallit

Fair Trade Judaica worked with MayaWorks to design the first tallit, woven in shades of blue and turqoiuse in the fall of 2009,  the first shipment went on sale in  the U.S. in January 2010.  Over the past two year,s the  colors have expanded to include red/brown stripes and one with rainbow colored stripes.

All of the tallitot since the first one have been woven by Lili Carmen Osario of the Tzanjuyu group in the Guatemala Highlands.  The demand for these tallitot is now greater than what Lili can weave herself, so at the end of April, she traveled from her home in Comalpa to the village of Xetenox and trained five additional women, Vicenta, Marta, Benita, Margarita and Santa, to weave the tallit.

The Xetonox women were very excited to learn how to weave the tallit, and began by making their first sample of the new (soon to come) lavender tallit!  The women were so proud about their accomplishment when they completed the first sample, they celebrated with a very special and delicious lunch!  Lila was an enormous help and the women said they learned every minute detail from weaving the tallit, which is 36″ wide by 72″ long, to selecting colors for the stunning purple stripes and stars.

Without Lila’s expert “weaving secrets”, the women no doubt would have struggled to learn to make the product. The women wrote all of the details of the weaving in their notebooks to retain the skills they learned during their training. Lila’s help with the training has not only taught the women to weave this product, but has helped better their weaving ability in general! The women are extremely grateful to receive this training from MayaWorks!

MayaWorks purchased the loom equipment needed for three sets, for about $125.  For now, one loom is prepared, and Lila will return to help the other women set up their looms as well.

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Fair Trade Judaica's website would never have happened without three extraordinary people:
Lisa K. Chanoff, whose generous donation made the project possible,
Dean MacDonald who captured our essence with his brilliant logo and artistic influence, and
Aaron Hodge Silver who took our ideas and built a website we can grow into for a long time to come.

THANK YOU!