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Civil Ensign (Israel)

2:3
by Zeljko Heimer
Flag adopted 19 May 1948

Description
Flag Legislation
Specifications and Construction Sheet
Incorrect Green Ensign on a stamp

See also:

Description

Blue flag with a white vertically elongated oval set near the hoist containing an also vertically elongated blue Magen David. Proportions 2:3.

Zeljko Heimer, 1 April 1996 and 7 February 2002

Flag Legislation

Flag Ordinance 1948

The civil ensign of Israel —or as originally called, the flag of the merchant fleet— was adopted on 19 May 1948, only 5 days after the Declaration of Independence, well before the national flag which was officially adopted only in October. Its adoption was by an Ordinance of the Provisional Council of State which was published on official gazzette no. 2, supp. A, 21 May 1948. This is my translation (notes in brackets):

Pkudat Oniyot (Leumiut ve-Degel)
mispar 3 le-shmat TASHAH - 1948
(Ships Ordinance (Nationality and Flag)
number 3 of year 5708 - 1948) Ordenance which determines to which ships will have the nationality of the state of Israel and what will be the flag of those ships.
The Provisional Council of State hereby enact as follows: (...)
3 (a) Every ship which is registered in the State of Israel is entitled and obligated to hoist the flag of the merchant fleet of the State of Israel.
(b) The flag of the merchant fleet of the State of Israel is as drawn and described hereby:
The flag is 180 cm long and 120 cm wide, its background is dark azure [Tkhelet Ke'he — blue in Hebrew is Kahol] with a white oval placed 15 cm from top, bottom and hoist. The oval is 90 cm in its long axis and 60 cm in the short axis. In its middle is a Magen David made of six azure [Tkhelet] lines, 3 cm wide, which combined make two triangles whose bases are parallel to the horizontal sides of the flag. The base of each triangle is 30 cm and each of its sides is 45 cm.
(...)
10 Ayar 5708 (19 May 1948)
(-) David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister
(-) Felix Rosenblitt, Minister of Justice

This Ordenance was in force until 1960 when it was abolished and replaced by the Maritime Act (Vessels) 5720-1960 (adopted August 14, 1960) which includes the same description. As I already noted, by comparing this description with the descriptions of the national flag and the naval ensign, the use of 'dark azure' in one place and only 'azure' in another, does not imply different colours but the same colour.

Dov Gutterman, 11 October 2001

Maritime Act 1960

Here is my translation, my comments in brackets:

Maritime Act (Vessels) 5720-1960 [adopted August 14, 1960]
Section 86
Appendix
The flag is 180 cm long and 120 cm wide, its background is dark azure [Tkhelet Ke'he] with a white oval placed 15 cm from top, bottom and hoist. The oval is 90 cm in its long axis and 60 cm in the short axis. In its middle is a Magen David made of six azure [Tkhelet] stripes, 3 cm wide, which combined make two triangles whose bases are parallel to the horizontal sides of the flag. Each triangle's base is 30 cm and each one of its sides is 45 cm.

Dov Gutterman, 15 September 1998

Specifications and Construction Sheet

120 cm ×180 cm
N.B. the star has the same shade of blue as the field
by Zeljko Heimer

In the first reading of the [above] passage, one gets the impression that something is not quite right defined. (...) There are actually only two questions that I might think of. (...) The first question regards the vertical 'distance' between the two triangles which form the Magen David. One could make this offset any distance, and obtain something that looks like a Magen David, but still there is only a correct one, that in which the outer small triangles are all the same. I guess that the law assumes this characteristic and thus omits mentioning it. One can visualise this (...) as a mesh of 12 triangles, 6 in the 'points' and 6 in the centre — on the construction sheet they are highlighted in green. The total dimensions of 120 ×180 cm are not indicated, in order not to overload the image.

Zeljko Heimer, 1 November 2000

N.B. the star has the same shade of blue as the field
by Zeljko Heimer

A further question is whether the dimensions of the triangles are 'middle-line' or 'outer edge' dimensions. I guess the answer is that they are outer dimensions out of practical reasons. Otherwise the image would look like this one [il~civ!.gif], where the 'middle-lines' are highlighted in green. However in that case the horizontal width of the triangle is not 30 cm but approximately 34,25 cm.

Zeljko Heimer, 1 November 2000

Album des Pavillons 2000, page IS 2.1, shows the civil ensign with a single shade of blue (dark blue).

Zeljko Heimer, 15 January and 17 July 2001

When on 15 September 1998 I reported about the specifications of the Israeli civil ensign (merchant flag), I made a mistake. Since the 1948 proclamation about the national flag uses Tkhelet Ke'he (dark azure) for the stripes and Tkhelet (azure) for the Magen David even though both are the same colour, I checked again the appendix of section 86 of the Maritime Act (Vessels) 5720-1960 — only to find out that the same words are used there too. I made some telephone inquiries, with the same conclusion: there is only one shade of blue in the civil ensign.

Dov Gutterman, 23 August 2001

Incorrect Green Ensign on a stamp

by António Martins

I came across this strange stamp from 1958 where —in order to be in the same color as the stamp— the artist made also a green civil ensign. Be sure, there has never been such an ensign. The stamp is one of four stamps that were issued in January 27th, 1958 under the name Maritime Stamps. The stamps show the ship Nirit and 3,225,000 stamps of this kind were issued, one fourth of them with the supplement that includes the "green ensign". All four stamps were designed by Mrs. M. Kroli. Another flag that was included in this series was the Zim houseflag (with blue stars instead of gold -