Jewish paper cutting

Jewish paper cutting is a traditional form of Jewish folk art made by cutting figures and sentences in paper or parchment.

It is connected with various customs and ceremonies, and associated with holidays and family life. Paper cuts often decorated ketubbot (marriage contracts), Mizrahs, and ornaments for festive occasions. Paper cutting was practiced by Jewish communities in both Eastern Europe and North Africa and the Middle East for centuries and has seen a revival in modern times in Israel and elsewhere.

History

Origins

The origin of Jewish paper cutting is unclear. Ashkenazi Jews in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries practiced this type of art. However, Jewish paper cuts can be traced to Jewish communities in Syria, Iraq, and North Africa, and the similarity in the cutting techniques (using a knife) between East European Jews and Chinese paper cutters, may indicate that the origin goes back even further. Some contend that Ashkenazi paper-cutting may date to the 14th century, though its popularity reached a zenith in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The first mention of Jewish paper cutting can be found in the treatise "The fight of the pen and the scissors" by a 14th-century rabbi, Shem Tov ben Isaac ben Ardutiel (1290–1369), who describes how he decided to cut letters in paper when his ink became frozen during a harsh winter. To students of Christian Spanish literary history, Rabbi Shem Tov is known as Santob de Carrion de los Condes, the courtly Castilian troubadour who composed the Proverbios morales for Pedro the Cruel.