The Story

In 2014, I was determined to learn tatreez, Palestinian cross stitch embroidery. I went on a mission to find a teacher, asking Khaltos and Sittis in the Bay Area community if they could teach me. I was turned down and told to focus on my education. Many explained that it took too much time and wasn’t worth all the labor. I felt heartbroken and defeated.

When I was sixteen I approached my Taita and asked her if she could teach me. She shamefully looked down at the ground and explained she did not know how to tatreez due to ethnic erasure and poverty, but her mother did. Unfortunately, this art form died with her in exile, severing our connection to the land and the thread.

I began reading books to learn about the art and eventually found myself collecting antique thobes. I discovered that the majority of our cultural regalia was owned and sold by white-European and Israeli antique collectors.

In 2024, I held my first official exhibit in San Diego at the Annual Palestine Lawn Program, showcasing thobes from Gaza and educating the public on preserving and protecting this art form. I watched Palestinian men and women weep as they traced their fingers over the threads in remembrance and longing. Reconnecting to the past and looking forward to the future.

I was called to mend this ancestral wound, and by December 2024, Tantura was born.

Tantura was founded by Amani Albahri in December 2024. The company is named after her grandfather’s village, located in the south of Haifa. The village was violently massacred and genocided in 1948 by European Zionist settlers. Her grandfather, Mousa Albahri was ethnically cleansed alongside his immediate family from the main port in Haifa, escaping by boat. The boat capsized near Cypress. Mousa became a refugee displaced in the Baddawi refugee camp located in Tripoli, Lebanon. Mousa was 16 years old when the Nakba happened. Amani grew up listening to stories from her grandfather of the beautiful memories he had of swimming with his siblings in Tantura.

Amani Albahri was born and raised in San Diego, California, Oholone terrorites living in exile with her family. She spent her weekends fishing and snorkeling with her family off the Mission Bay jetty. Fishing is a passed-down ancestral practice and a way of resistance to erasure for the Albahri’s. Amani has spent over a decade collecting and preserving thobes as well as oral storytelling passed down from her father and grandparents.

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