State of Israel's Emblem

Menorah and Olive Branches: A Whole Greater than the Sum of its Parts The emblem of the new state, adopted by unanimous vote of the Provisional Council of State, includes several ideas from the earlier proposed designs, the olive branches express the state's peaceful intentions; the menorah attests to the link of the Jewish people with its glorious past in the homeland and the return of the state to its former luster (through the metaphor of the restoration of the menorah from the Arch of Titus to its place in Israel), and indirectly, the beginning of the end of the Diaspora. "Israel" is the new name of the State, but the inscription (Israel) is also a remnant of the phrase "Peace over Israel," which had been part of the earlier proposal. The emblem as we know it today clearly shows that in the struggle between the "secular camp," which wanted to emphasize the state's socialist and democratic present and future, and the "religious camp," which wished to stress the grandeur of the past and its link to the God of Israel, the former won. Yet this is also inaccurate. There existed graphic precedents for the combination of the menorah and olive branches and this was not the invention of the Shamir brothers. In fact, the combination may be traced to a specific text, one of the mystical visions of the Prophet Zechariah (Zechariah 4:1-3, 11-14) Thus, the emblem of the State that has become familiar to us borrowed Zechariah's vision to represent the Zionist idea of the newly established State of Israel. From this perspective, the establishment of the State corresponds to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Return to Zion. The two olive trees evidently played an extremely important part in the perception of the new State, in which "religion" and "state" (the "two anointed dignitaries" - the high priest and the governor) stand together to realize the Zionist dream. The process of designing the emblem of the State, which began with the expression of a simple message, stressing the grandeur of the Jewish past as well as Herzl's notions of social progress, led to the creation of a much more complex emblem. This emblem projects a sophisticated and multi-faceted message based on verbal metaphors and visual and textual quotations. All of these are embodied in a few elements. The three visual elements - the menorah, the olive branches, and the inscription "Israel" - faithfully and with maximum brevity and directness, project the message conceived by the designers. (Read the entire story of how the emblem design was determined.)