Many plant-related crafts that were known in the shtetls of Eastern Europe have been long forgotten, including basket weaving which was traditionally done by girls and women. Baskets were woven from all kinds of plants, for many different uses, and could be found everywhere in the Old Country.
The above photo is entitled "apprentices" and is from Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from An-sky's Ethnographic Expeditions
from The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum of Kraków (Muzeum Etnogafriczne im. Seweryna Udzieli w Krakowie): a legend describing weaving with plants.
from the Ethnographic Museum: baskets for gathering mushrooms
from the Ethnographic museum: a basket for potato gathering
from A Vanished World: basement storefront, Vilna, Lithuania, 1937 (could these be herbs?)
from A Vanished World: a (roots?) vendor, Łask, Poland close to Łodz, 1937
from A Vanished World: a fruit stand in Warsaw, 1937
from A Vanished World: Yeshiva friends, Mukachevo, Ukraine 1937 (note basket carried on left)
from A Vanished World: a family of bagel peddlers, Warsaw, 1938
from A Vanished World: a porter, Warsaw, 1938
And an excerpt from the yizkor of the shtetl of Vishnevets (present day Vyshnivets, Ukraine) mentions the craft in passing: "Jews traded in wheat, fruit, and baskets they wove out of reeds, and their merchandise was exported all over the country."
Sources:
Vishniac, Roman. A Vanished World. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1983
Avrutin, et. al. Photographing the Jewish Nation; pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions. Brandeis University Press, Waltham, Massachusetts, 2009
Collections of Muzeum Etnogafriczne im. Seweryna Udzieli w Krakowie in Kazimierz, Kraków, Poland
Yizkor: https://jewishgen.org/yizkor/Vishnevets/vis157.html
