In June 2020 the town of Beit Sahour was recognized by the World Craft Council as the World Craft City for the year 2020 based on its long tradition of olive wood carving. The World Craft Council is a UNESCO-affiliated organization that was founded in New York in 1964 to promote and support craft work.

Palestinian olive wood carving probably dates back to the Crusader time and is artisan work that was taught from father to son.

Most of the olive wood industry is at least partially mechanized now but there are still olive wood artists who spend weeks working on one piece, by hand, with lots of characteristics and details that could never be done by a so-called copy machine.

Elias Abu Zuluf from Beit Sahour has his own olive wood workshop and souvenir shop. In this podcast interview he talks about the characteristics of olive wood, how this local tradition came about, what kind of olive wood is used, what type of carvings you can find in Palestine and how Covid19 affected the wood workers in Palestine.

If you are interested to visit his website and see the olive carving go to www.zuluf.com and order online with the "15 off" promo code.

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