The beautiful textiles that are made today by Jewish fabric artists are part of a long tradition. The contributions of the skills of women to the Mishkan (sanctuary) in the desert and the Temples in Jerusalem are documented in texts. In the description of the setting up of the Mishkan, we read:
All the wise-hearted women spun with their own hands, and brought in the form of spun yarn the blue, the purple, the scarlet and the fine linen. And all the women, whose hearts had stirred them in wisdom, spun the goats’ hair (Exodus 35:25-26).
In the Talmud, reference is made to women weavers who worked on the repair of the curtains in the Temple. (B.Talmud Ketubbot 106a)
Although much embroidery was executed by men through the ages, we know that particularly in Italy from the Renaissance on, Jewish women did make synagogue textiles such as parochets, (ark curtains), desk covers, and torah mantles and binders. Many museums today contain pieces with inscriptions that show that women from very prominent families, such as the Ottolenghi, the Meshullami, the Finzi and the Montefiore, made and donated exquisitely embroidered textiles to the synagogue. One Torah curtain in the Jewish Museum was made especially for Shavuot for the synagogue of Pitigliano in the nineteenth century by four young girls, one of them a member of the Modigliani family. In order to do their embroidery in an atmosphere of holiness, the four women embroidered each morning while fasting.
Further evidence comes from the Mishaberach Prayer that was said in Italian synagogues
״מי שברך אמותינו שרה רבקה רחל ולאה
הוא יברך את כל בת ישראל שעושה מעיל
או מטפחת לכבוד התורה והמתקנת נר לכבוד
התורה הקב״ה ישלם שכרה ויתן לה גמולה
הטוב ונאמר אמן״
May He who blessed our Foremothers Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, bless every daughter of Israel who makes a Torah mantle or wrapper in honor of the Torah and prepares a candle in honor of the Torah. May G-d pay her reward and give her recompense, and let us say Amen.
The fact that these items were signed, dedicated and dated by the women who made them gives us a window into the talents of Jewish women of the past. One Torah curtain was donated for the dedication of the Sephardi synagogue in Vienna in 1887. The inscription lists by name fourteen individual women from one family who worked on the embroidery of the curtain.
It is likely that through the generations, countless unsigned textiles for synagogue and domestic ritual use were also made by women.