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 differentYaa types of ‘ketonet’.
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 Look carefully at the poster – how to discuss As we know, Israel won her War of Independence in May, 1948. After many different clothes have the this, however, Israeli leaders found themselves in a difficult situation: work ‘ketonet’ (the word used to Israel had no foreign currency remaining and immigrants were describe Yosef’s coat) in their streaming into Israel by the thousands. Within three years, the country names? had absorbed 700,000 new immigrants which doubled its population. Are these same names still used in A serious food shortage now threatened Israel. To avoid this situation, Ivrit nowadays? How do you think the clothes shown the Israeli• government had little choice but to introduce food rationing for all Israeli citizens. This was the beginning of a decade of Tzena – here from 1950s Israel are the Austerity in Israel. same/different from clothes worn nowadays? 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. Cut out an outline of a coat or tunic and decorate it using mosaic squares, scrunched Each month, every citizen would receive food coupons worth six Israeli up tissue paper, beads, etc. 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. What do you think Yosef’s Before long, there emerged a black-market selling rationed products coat looked like? Ice and smuggled in from the countryside at much higher prices. This, in turn, decorate gingerbread men led to the government establishing, in September 1950, the Office for Fighting the Black Market. to show your ideas.
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 watch a Parashah overview including Yosef’s coat, see here: to eat Kitniot on Pesach.
In 1952, Germany paid Israel the equivalent of $3 billion. This funding We read that the government set up was given by way of a reparation agreement to make up for seizing What do you think an office for fighting the black property and for the loss of livelihoods for their former Jewish citizens market during the years of during World War II, as well as a form of compensation for the loss of the benefits of rationing were rationing. so many Jewish lives. This gave a huge, much-needed boost to Israel’s Imagine you worked for this office. economy and the next few years brought with them a reduction in the during the 1950s? What were the How would you go about tackling the foods being rationed. By 1959, there was no more rationing in Israel black-market industry? Design a and this era of Tzena was finally over. disadvantages? poster displaying your ideas.