Author: Sam Simons
Receiving the Textile Society of America’s generous Student/New Professional Award allowed me to participate in the 2024 symposium, “Shifts & Strands.” This support was instrumental in my first conference presentation, enabling me to share a topic of profound importance to me, both as a weaver and a scholar: the transformative and liberatory powers of textiles. My participation enriched my research on contemporary Jewish ritual garments and expanded my community in unexpected and joyous ways.
While textiles have always been central to my life—from childhood afternoons balling my grandmother’s yarns to recent years rhythmically weaving my own tallit on a floor loom—my research and creative practices were predominantly confined to my personal, domestic space. When TSA accepted my presentation proposal, “Weaving Rituals for Resistance: Queering the Tallit,” that dramatically changed. TSA provided a platform to expand the reach of my project, connecting me with broader communities of artists and scholars.
Preparing for the symposium pushed me to synthesize the core strands of my work: queerness, textiles as ritual technologies, and evolving Jewish traditions in response to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Through this process, my perspective on my handwoven tallit shifted in novel ways. I began to understand my design decisions as part of collective queering practices, rather than simply expressions of my individual maker’s intuition. This realization inspired me to seek out other queer Jewish tallit and tzitzit artists, aiming to contextualize my work within a collective set of design and use-based motivations.
This community-building process became the beating heart of my presentation. I connected with queer artists A.B.M. and G.R., whose collaborative work exemplifies the tallit’s protective role in anti- and non-zionist Jewish ritual practices. My presentation explored tallitot they collaborated on, each incorporating Palestinian cultural symbols and textile arts. One such tallit featured tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) corners, commissioned by Inaash, an organization that employs Palestinian embroiderers living in Lebanese refugee camps.
Learning about tatreez was an important aspect of appreciating this tallit’s significance. The symposium provided a perfect guide through the keynote speaker, Wafa Ghnaim, a dress historian, author, and embroideress specializing in the dress history of Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Her scholarship provided me with a framework to understand tatreez’s significance as both a living cultural heritage and a material document of indigenous connection to land.
This connection that began at TSA continued to grow. Mere months after the symposium, I had the privilege of welcoming Wafa Ghnaim to my university, Bard Graduate Center, where she delivered a fantastic lecture titled “The Timeless Thobe: Documenting Land, Heritage & Culture in Palestinian Dress.”
My experience with the symposium was more than a first presentation; it was an invitation into a vibrant, supportive community and a powerful catalyst that fostered intense experimentation, transformation, and lasting community bonds. I am deeply grateful to the Textile Society of America for supporting me on this formative journey.
Sam Simons is a weaver and Master’s student in Design and Art History at Bard Graduate Center, specializing in Public and Digital Humanities. Their research explores the relationship between the body, ritual, and technology, often through the lens of textiles. An experienced producer of experimental media art exhibitions and festivals, Sam is passionate about the transformative and liberatory powers of art. Their 2024 TSA presentation, “Weaving Rituals for Resistance: Queering the Tallit,” examined how queerly crafted tallitot serve as dynamic architectures of personal and communal significance, merging Sam’s scholarly and artistic practices.
