In this week’s Parashah of Vayeshev, we read about Yosef and his ‘Ketonet Pasim’ – ornate
robe. This week’s NLI resource features a poster of clothes’ store vocabulary including a couple
of different types of ‘ketonet’.
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This poster was published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in the 1950s. It shows drawings of common articles of clothes and haberdashery together with their names in Hebrew.
The poster is divided into five
categories, being women’s clothes, men’s clothes, haberdashery, shoes and ‘whites’. Common phrases that
a customer would need to know are also included on the poster.
The poster shows the clothes that were commonly to be found in the Israeli wardrobe in the 1950s when food, clothing, and furniture were rationed. The style of the clothing is simple and basic.
One of the phrases on the poster is:
“Please put new soles and heels on my shoes,” which was probably more
common than buying new shoes during the time of rationing.
Due to changes in fashion and more practical ways of dressing, some of the items in this poster, such as corsets, suspenders, petticoats and overshoes are no longer frequently worn.
Link to NLI Resource
Activities:
Something to discuss
Look carefully at the poster – how many different clothes have the
work ‘ketonet’ (the word used to describe Yosef’s coat) in their
names? Are these same names still used in Ivrit nowadays?
As we know, Israel won her War of Independence in May, 1948. After
this, however, Israeli leaders found themselves in a difficult situation: Israel had no foreign currency remaining and immigrants were
streaming into Israel by the thousands. Within three years, the country had absorbed 700,000 new immigrants which doubled its population. A serious food shortage now threatened Israel. To avoid this situation,
How do you think the clothes shown
here from 1950s Israel are the same/different from clothes worn nowadays?
the Israeli government had little choice but to introduce food rationing for all Israeli citizens. This was the beginning of a decade of Tzena – Austerity in Israel.
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At first, it was only basic foods that were rationed, e.g., oil, sugar and margarine but this increased greatly and by 1950 it was
extended to include furniture, clothes and footwear.
Each month, every citizen would receive food coupons worth six Israeli lirot and each family was given a set amount of food. The diet followed
was based on the one set in the UK during World War II.
Cut out an outline of a coat or tunic and decorate it using mosaic squares, scrunched up tissue paper, beads, etc.
What do you think Yosef’s
coat looked like? Ice and decorate gingerbread men to show your ideas.
Before long, there emerged a black-market selling rationed products smuggled in from the countryside at much higher prices. This, in turn, led to the government establishing, in September 1950, the Office for Fighting the Black Market.
That same year, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared that due to the rationing and high prices of all food, Ashkenazim would be permitted to eat Kitniot on Pesach.
To watch a Parashah overview including Yosef’s coat, see here:
In 1952, Germany paid Israel the equivalent of $3 billion. This funding was given by way of a reparation agreement to make up for seizing property and for the loss of livelihoods for their former Jewish citizens during World War II, as well as a form of compensation for the loss of so many Jewish lives. This gave a huge, much-needed boost to Israel’s economy and the next few years brought with them a reduction in the foods being rationed. By 1959, there was no more rationing in Israel and this era of Tzena was finally over.
We read that the government set up an office for fighting the black
What do you think
the benefits of rationing were during the 1950s? What were the disadvantages?
- market
- during
- the
- years
- of
rationing. Imagine you worked for this office. How would you go about tackling the black-market industry? Design a poster displaying your ideas.
