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Zionist Flags (Israel)

Last modified: 2024-01-20 by martin karner
Keywords: israel | zionism |
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Zionist flags on old cards

I recently found here postcards showing items from an exhibition entitled Blue-White in Colours that took place in 1996–1997. I assume that the exhibition was about Zionism reflected in postcards, greeting cards, posters etc. Some of the cards have flags on them:

  • A Zionist Calendar for the Jewish Year 5664, St. Petersburg, 1903. The flag is in b/w so I'm not sure about the colours. It is divided horizontally, the upper part is probably blue, the lower part white. On the blue half there are 7 stars, in gold/yellow or white. These are Herzl's 7 stars, but here they are 5-pointed instead of the usual magen-david like six-pointed stars. In the centre of the flag there is a large dark magen-david, probably in dark blue.
  • The Ship of Redemption, greeting card for the new year, New York, 1925. There are two flags there, blue over white with a golden magen-david in the centre. Below the magen-david there are inscriptions in gold. On one flag, "... for out of Zion shall go forth the law" (which continues, "and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem", Isaiah 2:3). On the other flag: "The Labour Battalion". This was an organization of pioneers in the 1920's. Its members worked in road construction.
  • The Daughter of Zion, greeting card for the new year, Germany, c. 1910. It shows a woman holding a long continuous flag (streamer?). It is white, has two blue stripes like in the Israeli flag, but also two narrower stripes, in a lighter shade of blue, close to the wider ones. Between the inner stripes and in the same shade of blue, there are small magen-davids, running along the flag, with the word "Zion" in Hebrew inside them.

Nahum Shereshevsky, 27 August 1998


Zionist flags in Premium Magazine

image located by William Garrison

Source: haaretz.com

Caption: Two similar but slightly different Zionist flags being carried in Zionist youth march in Tel Hai (Israel, then British Palestine Mandate), 1937. Credit: Lazar Diner / Central Zionist Archives
William Garrison, 23 August 2021


Wrong Flag at a book

image by Željko Heimer

The book is called "Vrldens huvudstder", which translates to "The capitals of the world". It is also said that the book has a "complete" flag map, which it does not, since it e.g. does not show the flag for Liechtenstein and Manchukuo, even though the capitals of these countries are presented inside the book. Interesting is also the flag for Palestine, virtually the same as the flag for Israel from 1948 (even if the Magen David is black in this picture, but the flags are overall a bit inaccurate).
Elias Granqvist, 22 April 2003

It is not the flag of "Palestine 1938" since in that era it was the british ensigns that should represent the mandate government, while the current Israeli flag (always with blue Magen David) was the flag of the Zionist Federations and the de-facto flag of the Jewish population.
Dov Gutterman, 7 July 2003


Flag in Larousse Dictionary

[Proposal in Larousse] image by Jaume Ollé

The flag of the Palestine Jews pre-1939, according to the Larousse Dictionary.
Jaume Ollé
, 11 January 1998


Flag in German Newspaper in 1941

I recently bought an atlas from 1932 when I was in Frankfurt, Germany. Inside there was a loose map, entitled Der Nahe Osten (The Near East). The map was from the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper and printed in 1941. Along the side of the map are short political histories and pictures of flags from the following nations: Egypt, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Romania, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Syria, Transjordan and Turkey.
The flag for Palestine is a simple blue over white. Maybe the German paper used that flag and omitted the Jewish symbol?
Roger Moyer
, 9 November 1996


Theodore Herzl pall

image located by Esteban Rivera

image located by Esteban Rivera

On July 3, 1904, Theodore Herzl passed away in Edlach, a village inside Reichenau an der Rax, Lower Austria. At his request, his remains were brought to Israel in 1949 and buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, which was named after him. The coffin was draped in a blue and white pall decorated with a Star of David circumscribing a Lion of Judah and seven gold stars recalling Herzl's original proposal for a flag of the Jewish state.
Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/mystery-solved-missing-herzl-parochet-found-in-kkl-jnf-house-in-tel-aviv-597937

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Herzel_coffin_honor_guard.jpg, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl). This is an original version seen in a black and white photograph at the time.
https://images.jpost.com/image/..., source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/mystery-solved-missing-herzl-parochet-found-in-kkl-jnf-house-in-tel-aviv-597937). This is a reconstruction version.
Esteban Rivera, 13 September 2022


Zionist flags and modern Israeli flag design

It seems that the last Israeli flags that showed some imagination were the Zionist flags which were modified to the national flag, now more than 100 years old. Almost all of the flags you can see in Israel are logo-on-bedsheets or a logo replacing the Magen David on the national flag. Only rarely can you find some imagination, and mostly in commercial flags. Only two commercial flags are worth noting. The first is the flag of Delek, an oil company. The second one was the former flag of Egged.
Dov Gutterman
, 23 May 2000


WW1 Flag Day Pin Badge (United Kingdom)

[pin badge] images (merged) located by William Garrison

WW1 Zionist cause flag pin badge. Gold print on dark brown field. Obverse: Star of David with centered Lion of Judah.
Reverse: Star of David with centered inscriptions "ZION" in Hebrew and Latin script.

Picture caption: "These WW1 charity ‘flag day’ fundraising pin badges were sold during the Great War to raise money for a variety of causes; mainly supporting the troops fighting on the various fronts, supporting the war effort, supporting wounded soldiers, widows etc. On Saturday, 5th September 1914, Mrs Morrison (the founder of the World War One flag day movement) launched her first collection of the Great War. 3600 collecting tins were issued, and each collector carried a tray laden with flags. It soon became evident that the sellers – with their red, white and blue scarves, and members of the Boys’ Brigade and Boy Scouts who assisted them, ‘had entirely captured the sympathy of the public’, she said. The extraordinary success of Mrs Morrison’s flag day was widely noticed, and soon ‘received letters from all parts of the country’, she said, ‘asking for information and assistance, as others were anxious to take up the idea, when it was seen how easily large sums could be obtained, by such a simple method. The holding of flag days as a rewarding means of raising money for worthy causes was proved for all to see.’ One of the most worthy of causes was that of raising money through the sale of penny-flags to help British prisoners of war in Germany." (source: ebay.com)
located by William Garrison, 28 January 2023


"I am Zionist" badge tag label

[badge tag label] image located by William Garrison

An Israel flag-like "badge tag label". The grahic element in the center mimicks the Star of David, and at the same time it reads "I am Zionist" (אני ציוני) in two lines. (source: ebay.com)
located by William Garrison, 18 September 2023