On Shabbos, I sometimes find myself gazing at the tallits in front of me. Usually I can figure out which tallit I’m seeing. My congregation has very conservative proclivities, so there’s not a whole lot of variety. 

Today, probably the vast majority of traditional wool black-striped tallits are made by one of two companies: Mishkan Hatchelet or Talitania. Both are located in Israel (with distribution centers in the US and elsewhere) and the two are head-to-head rivals. When one company comes out with the new tallit concept, the other often introduces a very similar version of their own. 

So the leading top-end tallits (not including more Chassidic styles, e.g. Chabad or Belz or Turkish) can be narrowed down to three types: the age-old smooth tallit fabric, a slightly textured weave and a more discernibly textured weave.

Prima A.A. vs. Prima A.A.

The heading is a bit of a misnomer. Mishkan Hatchelet used to call their bread-and-butter tallit Prima A.A., but at some point changed the name, here in Israel, to Tzemer A.A. But we didn’t change the name. To this day we call it Prima A.A.

To make matters confusing, somewhere along the way Talitania started making a Prima A.A. tallit of their own. Although I’ve heard very good things about it, we don’t currently carry the Talitania Prima A.A. Part of the reason is because every once-in-a-while we get a customer who is very particular about the striping pattern, and believe it or not, Talitania uses a slightly different striping pattern for different sizes of the Prima A.A. (see photo on right).

But which is a better tallit – the Talitania or the Mishkan Hatchelet? The jury’s still out on that. If you ask me, I’d say the Mishkan Hatchelet, but last week I asked a colleague and he ooh-ahed the Talitania. I made a point of asking him because he worked for many years in a tallit shop that sold both manufacturer’s tallits, and now works for a wholesaler who sells both. Most retailers work with one manufacturer or the other, and tend to be partial to whichever supplier they have chosen to work with. But this particular tallit seller (like us) was accustomed to working with both, so I felt he would be likely to be an impartial observer.

Hamefoar vs. Malchut

Made by Mishkan Hatchelet, Hamefoar is marketed under the name פאר קל in Israel. Here’s a stab at a very rough translation of that: Light Luxury. The texturing is very subtle, the airy weave is superb, it does a good job of staying in place on your shoulders, drapes nicely. Everything you could ask for in a tallit. And the Malchut is quite similar. Personally I like the weave of Hamefoar a bit more, although I myself owned and wore a Malchut for several years, and it served me well.

Tashbetz vs. David Tashbetz

The Tashbetz is marketed under the same name in both Hebrew and English. Here in Israel, Talitania calls their version of this box-weave concept David, but we felt that didn’t have the right ring to it, and because it’s almost identical to the Tashbetz, we call it David Tashbetz. The box weave is designed to have optical nonslip qualities.

Weekday or Shabbos Tallis?

If you want one tallis for weekday use and a second tallis for Shabbos, there are three possible strategies:

1. Use pretty much the same tallis, only whichever one is new gets the honor of gracing your shoulders on Shabbos. So after one or two or three years, when it’s starts looking like white and clean and crispy, you downgrade it to weekday use and get a new Shabbos tallis.

2. You use pretty much the same tallis, only one is a size bigger and is reserved for Shabbos use. To some people, a longer tallis looks more elegant, and a shorter tallis is more practical and manageable.

3. Your Shabbos tallis has special additions, such as a lining and side bands to make it a bit heftier, or maybe a special atara. 

Of the six tallits mentioned above, all of them has what it takes to qualify as a Shabbos tallis.

On several occasions, tallit and tzitzit customers living in South Africa have asked us about dealing with the steep duties imposed by their country’s customs bureau.

Unfortunately in a few cases, customers placed an order and found out the hard way when they received a bill from South Africa customs.

As per our stated policy, we use commercial shippers and state the correct amount on the customs declaration section of the shipping label. 

However, I’ve noticed that recently a number of customers from Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria and other parts of South Africa have placed an order and had the tallit or tzitzit sent to a brother in Rechovot or an uncle in Herzliya or a sister in Haifa. I don’t know how they arrange to take it from there, but I’m sure there are ways. 

Note that when an order is not sent abroad, we are required to charge Israel’s 17% VAT charge. But this is certainly lower than the taxation levied by South Africa, and perhaps some customers are not necessarily opposed to adding a bit of money that goes to Israel coffers.

Tallit sizing leaves a lot of our customers a bit confounded. A really easy solution is to try out a tallit that fits you, send me the measurements and I’ll tell you which size it is, since tallit sizing is largely standardized. But for a lot of people this is not an option, for whatever reason. Here’s a fairly typical inquiry we received, from a fairly tall customer.

Ben,
Hi! Shalom. I’m Jeff from North Carolina and my rabbi loves your Tallis Size Wizard. Okay, back to me.
I’m
a 6ft tall fellow who is confused about height and width because all my
life I’ve worn a pleated bar mitzvah tallis and don’t know from
Ashkenazi tzitzis or knots, ateras [atarot] or stripes. I am now a 57-year-old
man.
I need a tallis for home use.
Please Ben, only you and HaShem can help me now. Keep me kosher!
Shavua tov,
Jeff

First, I set out to explain to Jeff the “theoretical science fundamentals” of tallit sizing.

Primarily in Reform and Conservative circles it’s common to find long, narrow tallits. They rest on the nape of the neck, wrap around the upper arms and all four corners hang in front. These are sort of one-size-fits-all. Just about anyone from 5’2″ to 6’2″ can manage with a size 24. They are also made in size 18 and size 36, but the length is the same. The change in width is primarily aesthetic. The problem with this type of tallit, from a halachic standpoint, is that you’re supposed to be wrapped in a tallit (עיטוף). There are various approaches to how to accomplish that, but this type of tallit is not ideal.

Traditional-style tallits are also rectangular, but not so narrow. The ratio is around 3:4. And here’s where it gets confusing, the “length” of the tallit is worn across the width of the wearer, and the “width” is what drapes down, covering the wearer from the neck down to the waist or lower. Different people might debate what should be called the width and what should be called the length. For clarity, I prefer to refer to “width” as the “height.”

If the above just leaves you confused, you can safely ignore it.

If you want the type of tallit that bunches up on your shoulders and drapes down the back, that means you’re looking at sizes 45 to 80.

Size 45 – XXS
Size 50 – XS
Size 55 – S
Size 60 – M
Size 70 – L
Size 80 XL

I’m 5’7″ and I wear a size 60. It drapes down to the back of my knees (not including the tzitzit). So I estimate that a size 70 would fit like that on you.

But sizing is not fixed in stone: some people like a long, elegant look, whereas others prefer to go down one or two sizes down, because they want it more manageable to wear.

From one size to the next is a difference of four inches (except for the jump from size 70 to 80). So if a size 70 would drape down to the back of your knees, size 60 would hang down four inches higher.

Regarding the tzitzit, if you want a very safe bet, select hand-spun, medium, Ashkenazi tying.

As for the atara, every tallit comes with an atara (except the Chabad Tallit). So you don’t need to worry about that.

Regarding the striping, that’s really a matter of personal preference. Black is sort of a conservative default option, but some people want some color (e.g. blue striping or blue-silver, blue-gold, etc.)

In
recent years, some tzitzit string manufacturers have begun making
different versions for different types of tying. The reasoning behind it
is a bit complex, but I’ll share it because some readers might find it
of interest: There’s stiff competition among tzitzit manufacturers,
perhaps what you could call a wholesale price war, since tallit and
tzitzit sellers like us use at least a few hundred sets per month, so a
shekel here and a shekel there makes a difference, and we try to pass those savings on to our customers. 

To make their prices
competitive, some of them have resorted to tricks to save on costs.
Since the price of wool is significant, some make their shamash
strings a bit shorter, while others make all of the strings a bit
thinner (i.e. even though it says “thick” on the package, one company’s
“thick” might be slightly thinner than another company’s “thick”).

And
then there are two or three companies that came up with a fair,
legitimate, transparent way to save on costs in a win-win fashion. All
tying customs require that one string, known as the shamash
string, be longer than the other three; however, for some tzitzit tying
customs (namely Ashkenazi, Yemenite and Sephardic 10-5-6-5) you don’t
need as much shamash length as others (Chabad and Sephardic 7-8-11-13).

Among
retail customers in Israel who do their own tying, the vast majority
are going to tie either Ashkenazi or Sephardic 7-8-11-13, so to make
things simple for consumers, the tzitzit manufacturer we currently
prefer labels the tzitzit strings “Ashkenazi” or “Sephardic,” but the
only difference is the length of the shamash string. When we finish
tying, we trim the tips with ceramic scissors, so essentially if we were
to use so-called Sephardic strings for Ashkenazi tying, the only
difference would be that we have an extra inch or two to trim off of one
of the strings.

Periodically we get an inquiry, often from mothers, asking why our boys tzitzit cost a whole lot more for Sephardic tying.

Here’s how it works in the tallit and tzitzit industry: The major manufacturers somehow are able to tie on machine-spun tzitzit at a very low cost, far lower than it costs us to tie tzitzit in-house. 

They find people willing to tie on in very large quantities, but, you know — you get what you pay for. Their standards are not very stellar.

Recently we came across a manufacturer that started offering Sephardic tying for just a bit more than the standard with Ashkenazi tying. I was a bit skeptical, but I ordered a small quantity to get an impression. When it was delivered and I opened it up, I found the tying to be way below my low expectations.

When the manufacturer ties on tzitzit, for 95% of tallit and tallit katan products it’s always the same: thin machine-spun tzitzit strings, tied according to the Ashkenazi custom. If a customer wants anything else — different tzitzit strings, different tying — the standard practice in the tallit industry is to just snip them off with scissors and do the tying in-house (unless the customer wants to tie himself).

Our in-house tying costs a lot more. The strings cost us more, the tying is done by kollel scholars, the caliber of the tying is a different league, the knots are tight and ends are trimmed.

We looked into ways to offer Sephardic tying for kids at a lower price, but after all these years have yet to find a solution. So essentially when you select Sephardic tying, you’re getting much higher standards.

We have very few customers in Russia and Ukraine, so I assumed the war would not have any ties to our business at all, but tangentially the war does have an impact here, since two of our main service providers are affected.

We currently use a service called Tidio to provide chat support. Since they’re based in Poland, they obviously have a keen interest in the disastrous conflagration over the borders. Tidio recently issued a press release: “Deeply saddened and alarmed by the events happening just across our eastern border, Tidio wants to support Ukraine and publicly express that we stand with the Ukrainian people.”

The press release goes on to mention that “[many of our employees are Ukrainian. Some of our employee’s family members are in Ukraine, many of them actively fighting against the invasion. We cannot imagine how this must feel—the least we can do is offer professional psychological assistance to those who need it.”

We also discovered that the software platform which our store is built on, Bigcommerce, has a team of software engineers in Kyiv.

Two weeks ago Bigcommerce sent out a message which mentioned the tribulations that software team is dealing with. “The BigCommerce team includes 106 extraordinarily talented, kind and valued employees based in Kyiv, Ukraine. We feel personal responsibility to do everything possible to protect, assist and defend our beloved colleagues. BigCommerce is working 24/7 to stay in touch with and support our team during this crisis. So far, the team has stayed in communication with us on a daily basis, despite the fact that most have relocated, some report as being in immediate danger and some have taken up arms to defend their country.”