This flag was printed in Warsaw in 1902 and would have been given to children to wave on the festival of Simchat Torah. The three main characters represented on the flag are Moses, Aaron the High Priest and Theodore Herzl. Moses is holding the two tablets of stone that he received on Mt. Sinai. Aaron is holding a vessel containing incense whilst Herzl is depicted with a top hat.
In the middle of the picture is a representation of an Ark, in which Torah scrolls are kept. On top of the Ark are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel together with their emblems. On the left hand side of the flag are sentences proclaiming the joy of the Festival of Simchat Torah, the obligation to be happy because Israel is the chosen people and a proclamation that Moses went up to the heights to receive the Torah. A deer and a lion are represented in the middle of the sentences with the words “Run like a deer” and “be brave as a lion”. These are quotes from Ethics of the Fathers 5:20. The implication is that Jews should epitomize these qualities when doing the divine will of. The printer’s details are listed at the bottom of the flag.
The flag on Simchat Torah has always reflected the historical time period of its publication. As a result, this flag connects the traditional leaders of Israel, Moses our teacher, Aaron the High Priest, and Herzl. It is an expression of their opinion with regards to Herzl and Zionism’s standing in Jewish History.
An additional way of explaining the three characters is to see them as three approaches to Jewish Nationalism: Moses represents spirituality; Aaron represents commandments and Law while Herzl represents the modern dreams for sovereignty of the Jewish People. Theodore Herzl is widely credited as being the visionary behind modern Zionism and the reinstitution of a Jewish homeland. He convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897 and although he died in 1904, his tireless work laid the foundations for the establishment of the State of Israel.
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Simchat Torah - Simchat Torah (Joy of the Torah) is the festival celebrated on the last day of Sukkot (Tabernacles). The day signifies the completion of the annual reading cycle of the Torah and the beginning of the new cycle.
Warsaw - This flag was printed in Warsaw, where there were over 300,000 Jews at the start of the twentieth century. Jewish life was vibrant and although many Jews were unemployed, by 1900, Warsaw had become the centre of Hebrew publishing in Poland, where many famous writers either lived or worked.
