Published: 12 July 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Tripoli schools are reviving the art of filigree, once taught by Jewish artisans
Abdelmajid Zeglam is just 12 years old, but his minutely detailed creations are already selling fast in the streets around a Roman-era archway dedicated to emperor Marcus Aurelius.
He is the youngest of 20 or so students, around half of them female, studying at the Libyan Academy for Traditional Gold and Silver Crafts, in a building that once served as a French consulate to the Ottoman Empire.
Trainees learn about precious metal alloys before studying the art of filigree, in which beads and threads of the precious materials are woven into intricate designs and then soldered together to create jewellery.
The institute’s founder, Abdelnasser Aboughress, said filigree jewellery was an ancient tradition in the North African country.
“Craftsmen in the medina of Tripoli were trained by Jewish masters and later by Arabs, at the prestigious School of Arts and Trades” founded in the late 19th century, he said.
But generations of tradition were abruptly halted after Muammar Gaddafi took power in a 1969 coup.
The capricious ruler scrapped the constitution and established his “jamahiriya” — a medley of socialism, Arab nationalism and tribal patronage. He also scrapped the private sector, seizing companies and confiscating their assets.
Overnight, self-employed artisans lost everything: their workshops, their livelihoods and their students.
“The state reduced Libyan crafts to nothing and forced a generation of young apprentices, who should have taken up the baton, to instead leave the traditional crafts and join the army” or become civil servants, said Aboughress.
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Libya sees rebirth of traditional jewellery craft once taught by Jewish artisans (Times of Israel)
