National symbols of Israel

National symbols of Israel are the symbols that are used in Israel and abroad to represent the country and its people.

The flag of Israel is the official flag of the State of Israel, which represents the state, its sovereignty, its institutions and its citizens both in Israel and worldwide. This flag has a white background and two horizontal blue stripes, charged with a blue Star of David (Magen David) in the middle.

The flag was conceived during the period of the First Aliyah and was adopted as the flag of the Zionism since the movement's inception in 1897. The flag was officially chosen as the flag of the State of Israel on 28 October 1948, and it was favoured over other flag proposals mainly due to the popularity it gained among the Jewish population in Israel.

The two blue stripes represent a tallit or prayer shawl, and both sides of the split Red Sea that the Hebrews walked through as written in the Book of Exodus.

The Star of David also represents the Jewish identity of Israel, as well as the culture and history of the Israeli people.

The emblem of Israel is an escutcheon which contains a menorah in its center, two olive branches on both sides of the menorah and at the bottom the label "Israel" in Hebrew.

The emblem was designed by the brothers Gabriel and Maxim Shamir, and was officially chosen on 10 February 1949 from among many other proposals submitted as part of a design competition held in 1948.

"Hatikvah" is the national anthem of Israel. The anthem was written in 1878 by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew from Zolochiv (today in Lviv Oblast), who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s. The poem was subsequently adopted as the anthem of Hovevei Zion and later of the Zionist Movement at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The text subsequently underwent a number of other changes.

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