Talk:Yemenite silversmithing

Yemen Mid‑importance

	Yemen portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Yemen, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Yemen on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.YemenWikipedia:WikiProject YemenTemplate:WikiProject YemenYemen articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Anthropology Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Anthropology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Anthropology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AnthropologyWikipedia:WikiProject AnthropologyTemplate:WikiProject AnthropologyAnthropology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

Gemology and Jewelry Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Gemology and Jewelry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Gemology and Jewelry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Gemology and JewelryWikipedia:WikiProject Gemology and JewelryTemplate:WikiProject Gemology and JewelryGemology and Jewelry articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Judaism Low‑importance

	Judaism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Judaism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Judaism-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JudaismWikipedia:WikiProject JudaismTemplate:WikiProject JudaismJudaism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Israel Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Israel, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Israel on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IsraelWikipedia:WikiProject IsraelTemplate:WikiProject IsraelIsrael-related articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Project Israel To Do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Assess : Rate the Unassessed Israel-related articles and Unknown-importance Israel-related articles.
Cleanup : Cleanup listing for this project is available. See also the list by category and the tool's wiki page.
Collaborate : Participate in WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration.
Copyedit : Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005
Deletion sorting : Participate in discussions at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Israel.
Expand : Ayala Procaccia, Diamond industry in Israel, Edna Arbel, Levin Kipnis, Rami Kleinstein, Sephardic Haredim, Zman Tel Aviv, Nachum Heiman, Public Defence (Israel), Prisoner of Zion, Trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran, Pre-Modern Aliyah
See also Articles needing translation from Hebrew Wikipedia.
Geographical coordinates : Add geographic coordinates to Israel articles missing geocoordinate data.
Infobox : Add infoboxes to Israel articles needing infoboxes.
Maintain : See Israel articles needing attention.
Map : See discussion at Module:Location map/data/Israel. Add maps to articles in Wikipedia requested maps in Israel.
NPOV : Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries
Photo : Add pictures to articles in Wikipedia requested photographs in Israel.
Stubs : See Israel stubs.
Update : Basic Law proposal: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People
Other :
- Translate to Hebrew : David Bar-Hayim, Guy Bavli, and Guy Oseary.

Craft

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Craft, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of craft on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CraftWikipedia:WikiProject CraftTemplate:WikiProject CraftCraft articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

Yemeni silver

Thanks Davidbena, for starting this article! Yemeni silver is a fascinating topic. But you are wrong if you equate Yemeni silver with Yemeni Jews. Yes, Yemeni Jews absolutely played an important role among Yemeni silversmiths, but Yemeni silversmiths are still active, now without many Jews. Look at the commons category. Huldra (talk) 23:27, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article wasn't written by me, but I hope to contribute to it. There is much that can be said about it. And, yes, the title is "ethnicity-neutral," and would include non-Jewish works, about which I am no expert. I have, however, worked on many pieces that treat on Yemenite Jewish jewelry.Davidbena (talk) 23:33, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huldra, there are excellent sources describing this as having been an entirely Jewish occupation well into the 1900s. And many, many sources documenting the steep decline of the craft of silversmithing in Yemen in recent decades, particularly the Yemen Times, which runs a lament to the dying trade almost annually, but also other media an the Marjorie Ransom book.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:24, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

These articles discuss the reason for this, which is that mass produced gold and silver jewelry have flooded into Yemen, undercutting the market for traditional craft production. This is so universally true of traditional crafts in general and of silversmithing across the world that it would only be surprising if it was not true in Yemen. Handmade silver today is either extremely high end, or very low end. In addition, several sources discuss the steep drop-off in the caliber of the craftsmanship c. 1950, with the mass migration of Jewish craftsmen to Israel - this predates the flooding of the market in Yemen with mass-produced imported jewelry. I chose not to emphasize - or indeed to mention - this in the text, but the fact is that collectors only collect early jewelry, pre- 1950. People pay a lot for the old stuff; and that's what the big collectors used to go to Yemen for (before the present fighting). It's not what the art world means when it talks about Yemenite silversmithing. And, of course, there are - or, at least, until recently there have been silversmiths in Yemen who made repairs, and and reworked bits from genuinely old pieces into handmade fake "antiques" in Yemen, just as there are everywhere else. If you have sources, I have no objection to your adding a section about contemporary silversmithing in Yemen.E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:39, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested change of title

User:E.M.Gregory, I saw Yoninah's comment on my Talk-Page, and her suggestion that the title of the article be changed. What do you think about the title, "Yemenite silversmith"? Another option might be to write: "Silversmithing (Yemen)", or perhaps "Yemenite silversmithing", or else "Silversmithing in Yemen". Do you have any better suggestions?Davidbena (talk) 22:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think I like Yemenite silversmithing. Partly because "Yemenite", not the now widely used "Yemeni" is what curators and collectors tend to use. And partly because this is about a dying/dead craft. an oldfashioned thing, like the word "silversmithing."E.M.Gregory (talk) 23:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the page name change. But the lead needs to be rewritten to reflect the subject – silversmithing. The Jewish silversmiths appear, as they should, in the History section. Yoninah (talk) 22:47, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Copyediting of March 7 2022 and some further suggestions

Hi, I have just made a number of changes to this fascinating article. Mainly, these are changes to make the grammar more fluently, as well as some corrections of typos. Also, I have reduced the gallery to 4 pictures as recommended in our Style Guide and rearranged the other pictures.

In the long paragraph about Niello technique and casting, I am not sure that the whole process of casting relates to Niello. As I understand the explanations in this article and from other types of jewellery, Niello is a black mixture to highlight engraved patterns. - Also, the description of the casting is a bit too long and detailled for an encyclopedic article, at least in my view.

If anyone finds anything about the use of this kind of jewellery by women, as part of their gender-specific identity and beauty, or more on the importance of their heirloom and changes in tastes and styles, that would be a welcome addition, too. (Similar to how I have tried to include it in Jewellery of the Berber cultures, which of course, was also a mainly Jewish Berber tradition.) Munfarid1 (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]