Adish means ‘apathetic’ in Hebrew. We wanted to name outright what our founders saw in the apathetic attitudes of many Israelis towards the occupation: apathy. By doing so, we wish to identify one of the foremost aims of Adish, which is to break through the apathy of many Israelis towards the violent occupation of Palestine and the oppression of Palestinian people by the state of Israel. 

Adish is a company formed of four partners. Qussay K is Palestinian, living in Ramallah, Occupied Palestine. Jordan Nassar is of mixed Palestinian and Polish heritage, born and living in New York, USA. Eyal Eliyahu, an Iraqi Jew, and Amit Luzon, a Libyan Jew, both living and working in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Qusasy's background is in non-profit organizations, specifically economic empowerment projects that involve handicraft production for local markets and international events. ADISH production is managed jointly by Qussay and Eyal. Eyal manages product development and the supply chain in Israel, while Qussay manages all aspects of production in Palestine. Qussay has a personal professional relationship with the Palestinian artisans whom we work with.

Jordan is an artist working predominately with Palestinian Tatreez embroidery, whose work is found at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and others. As ADISH’s artistic director, he creates the designs brought to life through the skills of the craftspeople we work with.

Amit oversees the brand's business operations, including marketing, finance, and business management. 

We are proud to describe ourselves as an Israeli-Palestinian brand.

Due to the heavy bureaucracy resulting from the occupation of Palestine, operating an international business out of Palestine is extremely difficult. This hobbling of the Palestinian economy prevents economic autonomy for its citizens.

Adish is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, where the company was registered in 2018. By operating Adish out of Israel, we can use its privileged systems — the country’s much easier export processes, for example — and share these benefits with our friends and colleagues across the border.

See the question, ‘Who are the Adish partners?’ for more information.

We never want anyone to be confused about the roots of the crafts we work with, whether this is Palestinian Tatreez embroidery or the weaving techniques of Bedouin artisans in the Negev.

We do not obfuscate: Tatreez is a Palestinian craft. We celebrate the Palestinian heritage of Tatreez and the skill of the craftspeople who produce it. We honor its inextricable link to Palestinian history and the right to Palestinian autonomy in labels in all of the garments we produce.

There is a long and shameful history of deliberate cultural appropriation of Palestinian symbols by Israelis, including the co-opting of the keffiyeh, which is part of the uprooting of the reality of the Palestinian experience. We aim to buck this trend by centering the living craft of Palestinian Tatreez, using our privilege as a half-Israeli company to challenge the narrow, negative narratives around Palestine and Palestinians that prevails in Israel and elsewhere, and to fight against the erasure of Palestinian culture.

Adish wants to see the end of the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

We believe that building business and personal relationships between Palestinian and Israeli people, which take into account the unequal power dynamics and the role of Israel as the oppressor, can disrupt the state of paralysis and contribute towards freedom for Palestine and peace.

We seek to express how profoundly abnormal and inhumane the occupation is and challenge the one-sided narrative around Palestine that pervades the discourse.

Adish refuses to work with any supplier or producer from an Israeli settlement. Any part of our supply chain found to be linked with a settlement will be changed immediately. 

The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and now occupy over a fifth of the land in the West Bank. These settlements are built on land stolen from Palestine since 1967, the land of the future state of Palestine. Settlements and the accompanying settler violence are one of the biggest threats to the lives and dignity of the people of Palestine, and we are opposed to them.

The vision of Adish is to create an alternative path towards change, through business and creativity, to do what politics and aid can not.

There are many non-profit projects that bring Palestinians and Israelis together. Our aim is that by building a mutually respectful joint social enterprise model, we can learn from the best of these projects and forge a new, sustainable direction that generates financial autonomy for individuals and communities in occupied Palestine and respect for Palestinian culture in Israel and elsewhere.

The artisans who created the embroidery on Adish’s garments formed groups in several locations in Palestine.

Qussay, Adish’s production manager in Occupied Palestine, manages Adish’s relationship with the artisans. Adish pays three times the market rate on each Tatreez pattern embroidered, and all materials and tools are provided directly to the artisans in their homes where they work. Through word of mouth and introductions, the groups have expanded, and the number of artisans employed has grown alongside Adish. 

Most of Adish’s collections are made locally in Palestine and Israel, and the center of the design is around traditional Palestinian techniques in the region. This means our supply chains are short, and we can build solid person-to-person relationships. Palestinian craftswomen in Ramallah, Dheisheh refugee camp, and Hebron produce hand-sewn Tatreez. Each garment is sewn with the location where it was embroidered and the name of the women’s embroidery group that produced the Tatreez. Having partnered with the Lakiya Weaving Factory in the Negev, Adish’s collections also feature embroidery, weaving, and tassels made by craftspeople from Bedouin communities working with their traditional methods.

It's important to note that the denial of Palestinian people's basic human rights for freedom of movement by Israel is affecting every aspect of life for most Palestinians. In a faint shadow of this reality, Adish production is made complicated by the inhumane checkpoints, road blockages, and ID checks.

We are led by the choices of the Palestinian people we work with, and the artisans are at the heart of what we do. As skilled craftspeople, they deserve to be celebrated and acknowledged widely.

As a safety precaution, the majority of the Palestinian stakeholders in Adish choose to remain anonymous. The controversial cross-border nature of our work means that they often fear recrimination to themselves and their families and accusations from individuals in their communities and online. 

Beyond our support for local artisans and craftspeople, we are committed to direct support for organizations working to end the occupation and achieve justice for Palestinians.

We are proud to donate 10% of proceeds through the Adish online shop to Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, a non-profit that advocates for Palestinian human rights by using litigation and representation in the Israeli judicial system. Moreover, Together with Highsnobiety & All Birds, we donated $10,000 to Sidreh (founders of the Lakiya Weaving workshop) in 2020. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Adish supported the Culture of Solidarity initiative, which sought to support vulnerable people dynamically and equitably by creating a series of ten one-off caps. In May 2021, we launched a one-off fundraising t-shirt to raise money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, and Medical Aid for Palestinians in light of Israel’s cruel and deadly bombing of Gaza. 

We are committed to doing more through our work to further the justice movement and end the occupation of Palestine by Israel. We know that our work lays in an uncomfortable juncture. We aim to use the systems of privilege for good and to push critical awareness of the occupation using creative means.