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Specifications and Construction Sheet (Israel)

8:11 | stripes 3+5+16+5+3
by Zeljko Heimer

Flag Specifications
Shade of Blue

See also:

Flag Legislation (Israel)
Israel

Other sites:

The Flag and The Emblem by Alec Mishory, with broad information on the development of both flag and arms, at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website

Flag Specifications

The Israeli flag legislation states that the official measurements are 160 × 220 cm. Therefore the official proportions are 8:11. Since nobody enforces this law, you can find variants at wide range of proportions. The common variant is 2:3 but I would not be surprised to find other proportions.

Dov Gutterman, 14 January 1999

The 1948 Flag Proclamation quoted from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Flag and Emblem webpage mentions that:

The flag is 220 cm. long and 160 cm. wide. The background is white and on it are two stripes of dark sky-blue, 25 cm. broad, over the whole length of the flag, at a distance of 15 cm. from the top and from the bottom of the flag. In the middle of the white background, between the two blue stripes and at equal distance from each stripe is a Star of David, composed of six sky-blue stripes, 5.5 cm. broad, which form two equilateral triangles, the bases of which are parallel to the two horizontal stripes.

Santiago Dotor, 10 October 2002

Shade of Blue

Bill Grimes-Wyatt stated, "there is no question that the flags of Israel and Greece are a light blue, not dark blue as your charts might suggest". Blues can be very confusing. In Smith 1975 you will find that Israel and Greece both use a fairly dark blue, though they are slightly different from each other. The Israeli blue is as dark as any of the Blue Ensigns shown in the book, and the Greek flag is of a very slightly lighter shade. They both stand in sharp contrast to the light blue of Argentina, Botswana, Fiji, etc. The Greek flag, like the Finnish flag, used to be what we would think of as "light blue" but both have changed to darker shades.

Nick Artimovich, 27 February 1996

The blue colour in Israel's flag is definitely dark. Some time ago I got a folder on national symbols from the Embassy of Israel in Washington. In the flag drawing the blue is dark, the text defines it as Yale Blue.

Jan Oskar Engene, 27 February 1996

The flag of Israel was a dark (navy) blue until the late 50's or early 60's at which time it was changed to a lighter blue.

Ronnie Kay, 27 February 1996

The flag of Israel is decidedly not any single shade of blue. It is based on a tallit, a religious article of clothing. The color of blue meant to be used on the tallit is not known and in fact everything from black to reddish purple is used to denote it with different religious and political connotations. The most common color (the light blue) comes from the fact that the tallit most people wear (including mine) is a light blue with the deliberate statement of "this is most probably not the right color". Many people, including me, would find black as acceptable as the current shade of blue. The reddish tones of purple could get you into an argument. For the State of Israel to make any definite proclamation beyond "blue" could incite violence (!) and questions as to what exactly what shade of the color it is are probably viewed with suspicion of "looking for a fight". There are enough people opposed to using blue at all, to begin with.

Jacob Faturechi, 21 October 1996

The 1948 Flag Proclamation describes the colour of two wide stripes as dark sky-blue (Tkhelet Ke'he, the same colour as specified for the civil ensign) but the Magen David as simply sky-blue (Tkhelet). However both are the same shade of blue.

Dov Gutterman, 23 August 2001

I have carried out a research on the origin of Israeli flags. The main conclusion is that all Israeli flags use the same shade of blue which is prescribed by law as 'dark azure' or 'dark sky-blue' (Tkhelet Ke'he). This includes all components —stripes, Magen David and background— of the national flag, the civil ensign, customs flag and the war ensign. Moreover, the rank flags use the same shade of blue for the Magen David and stripes in the canton as for the background.

Dov Gutterman, 8 September 2001

Even though the legislation uses the same blue, in actual practice a darker shade is used for naval flags [civil and war ensigns] and police flags.

Dov Gutterman, 6 February 2003