🇮🇱 The colours of Israel
7 meanings recorded, 5 colours tied to the country and 1 colour city.
Israel’s national colours are blue and white. The blue, inspired by the traditional Jewish prayer shawl and an ancient biblical dye, stands for divine glory and strength, while white represents benevolence. These colours are deeply tied to Jewish tradition and identity.
Where no official value is given, the swatch shows the colour family, not the exact shade.
- The blue stripes represent the Jewish prayer shawl, the tallit.
- Blue is linked to tekhelet, a biblical dye from a sea snail.
- The Star of David has been a Jewish symbol since the 17th century.
- Flag proportions are officially 8:11, but other ratios are common.
- Blue and white are used in Israeli patriotic songs and youth groups.
The colours of the flag of Israel
The Israeli flag features a white field with two horizontal blue stripes and a blue Star of David in the centre. The blue stripes recall the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, which traditionally has blue or purple bands. The blue is described as dark sky-blue or azure, but in practice, flags show a range of blue shades. Official and popular explanations both link the blue to the biblical dye tekhelet, associated with divinity and remembrance of commandments. The white background is said to symbolise divine kindness.
National colours of Israel
Beyond the flag, blue and white are widely used as Israel’s national colours in symbols, patriotic songs, and organisations. The combination is seen as a sign of Jewish identity and pride, both in Israel and in Jewish communities abroad. The colours are especially prominent in Zionist contexts, such as youth movements and political groups named for them.
How the colours were chosen of Israel
Blue and white first appeared as Jewish national colours in the late 19th century, inspired by the tallit and the biblical commandment to use blue-dyed threads. Early Zionist flags used these colours, with designs featuring the Star of David and Hebrew inscriptions. The current flag was adopted in 1948, based on the Zionist flag. The blue dye tekhelet, once made from a sea snail, became rare and its exact source was lost, but the tradition of blue stripes continued. The flag’s design was chosen to reflect both ancient practice and modern Jewish symbolism.
Official shades and rules of Israel
The flag’s proportions are officially set at 8:11, with blue stripes 25 cm wide and placed 15 cm from the top and bottom. The blue is described in law as 'dark sky-blue', but no single shade is enforced, and variations are common. In 1950, a standard for government flags was set as 'Indanthren Calidon (GCDN)', with a CMYK value for product labels, but in practice, shades vary.
The facts in this overview come from the Wikipedia article "National colours of Israel", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, together with "Flag of Israel". Rang rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
What colours mean in Israel
Customs vary by region, faith and family; these are the meanings most often recorded.
Some people wear a thin red string around the left wrist against the evil eye. The strings are often said to have been wound around Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem. It is a folk custom.
Protection and healingSource: Red string (Kabbalah)Opponents of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza took orange as their colour, tying orange ribbons to cars and bags. Supporters of the plan answered with blue.
Politics and protestAngerSource: Orange (colour)Since the attack of 7 October 2023, yellow ribbons and yellow chairs have stood for the hostages taken to Gaza and for the demand to bring them home.
Politics and protestHopeSource: Yellow ribbonThe flag is white with two blue stripes and a Star of David. The stripes recall the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, which is white with blue or black bands.
Sacred and holyPolitics and protestPrideSource: Flag of IsraelTekhelet is the blue dye the Torah commands for one thread of the fringes on a prayer shawl. The method was lost for centuries, and some Jews now use a dye made from sea snails.
Sacred and holyAweSource: TekheletOn Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, many Jews dress in white, and some men wear a white robe called a kittel. On kibbutzim, white is also worn for the harvest festival of Shavuot.
Sacred and holyPurity and peaceCalmSource: KittelHaredi, or strictly Orthodox, Jewish men wear black suits, black hats and white shirts every day. The cut of a coat or hat can show which community a man belongs to.
Sacred and holySource: Haredi Judaism
Colours tied to Israel
Green
Malachite
A banded green mineral and pigment once prized for art and decorationColour named from nature · 🇪🇬 Egypt +4
#007FFF
Azure
A clear sky blue, halfway between blue and cyan on the colour wheelNamed shade · 🇮🇹 Italy +2
Purple and violet
Tyrian purple
A reddish-purple dye once worth its weight in silver, made from sea snailsDye · 🇱🇧 Lebanon +4
Red
Kermes
A deep red dye made from Mediterranean scale insects, once prized for scarlet clothDye · 🇪🇬 Egypt +5
Blue
Tekheletתְּכֵלֶת
A blue dye from sea snails, central to ancient Jewish ritual and traditionDye · 🇮🇱 Israel +2
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Azure: Marco Almbauer, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Tyrian purple: Photograph: U.Name.Me Derivative work: TeKaBe, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Tekhelet: The original uploader was Sputnikcccp at English Wikipedia ., CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Malachite: Burkhard Mücke, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kermes: MyName ( Gryffindor ) stitched by Marku1988 This panoramic image was c, Public domain, source
- Jerusalem Il: askii, CC BY-SA 2.0, source