The white tallit is the most common Jewish prayer shawl. The most common white tallit has black stripes, some have blue or white stripes, and more modern tallit designs feature a range of hues.

Historically, as a reminder of techelet tzitzit, the tallit had blue stripes, which later morphed into black. “The current custom of black stripes,” notes Rabbi Shraga Simmons, “is in keeping with the synagogue decorum, which has value in and of itself.”

In fact, the white tallit is also preferred according to halacha, since the tallit should be the same color as the tzitzit. The Gemara says G-d Himself wraps himself in a tallit, and “His garments are white as snow.”

Among Sephardic Jews, the prevalent custom is to wear an all-white tallit, but many non-Sephardic Jews may opt for a white tallit with white stripes for aesthetic reasons – as a wedding tallit to be worn under the chuppah, as a Shabbos tallit or a special tallit for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

My customers are not always sure the white tallits they see on my product pages are really white. They are. (The only exception is the Beit Yosef Tallit, which is a light cream color.)

Synthetic tallits look whiter and have more sheen, but in real life they don’t look as nice as wool. Also, colors are not true on the Internet. Obviously the lighting affects the photograph and on different computer monitors the colors can vary considerably. I try hard to post the best quality images possible, but it’s not always easy.

Some people prefer an off-white tallit. Sometimes a bride feels that if her groom wore a white tallit, it wouldn’t look right with the color of the chuppah or her wedding dress.

Wool tends to yellow with age. Our high-end traditional white wool tallits are made of a special fabric treated to retain whiteness over time.