From the Old City of Jerusalem - a unique shop near the
Church of the Holy Sepulche
Bilal Abu-Khalaf's Shop Bilal Abu-Khalaf is a third-generation textile merchant in the Old City who imports cotton, silk and gold cloth for Christian priests, Muslim imams and ultra-Orthodox Jews. Customers throughout the world frequent his shop in the Muristan, near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where he maintains an Aladdin's cave of Damascene hand-woven silks, fine Indian saris and woven gold-thread hangings from Kashmir. A Muslim whose family has lived in Jerusalem for generations, Abu-Khalaf has preserved the remains of a Byzantine church beneath a glass floor installed in his shop that he discovered during renovations. Bilal Abu-Khalaf: “The Old City is in my blood. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. My grandfather and my father both had their shops here. first opened his My grandfather shop in 1936 in Pasha Street. I sell the material for vestments to Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Ethiopian and Coptic priests. There are Jerusalem designs – the special Cross for the priestly robes in different colors according to the festivals: purple for Easter, red for Christmas, white for Sundays. The patriarchs wear red and gold with the pattern of a cross or an angel. I also sell material to the Jews for their kaftans. According to tradition, Abraham wore a white jalabaya with stripes, so the ultra-Orthodox Jews wear white with blue and gold stripes for the Sabbath and white with white stripes for festivals. They all come to my shop.”
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