The National Library of Israel recently acquired a collection of Simchat Torah flags from as early as the 1860.
The flags are generally made on cheap paper and only used by children to wave during hakafot on the holiday, so no one really tried to preserve and collect them until relatively recently.
The custom of flying flags at Simchat Torah is relatively ancient, and various testimonies indicate that the custom of flags has been known since about four hundred years ago, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, and this is due to the desire to cultivate the connection between Simchat Torah and the children's world.The unique donation to the National Library was received from William Gross, whose collection is considered one of the largest and most important private collections of Judaica and Jewish visual culture. Considered an unconventional collector, Gross already recognized in the past that objects made of precious materials such as silver, gold, silk, and velvet were beyond the reach of most Jews throughout the generations, and belonged mainly to the economic elite. This insight led him over time to expand his collections and research into other areas of Jewish material culture. One of them is the collection and research of visual and decorative images in print on paper: Simchat Torah flags, leaflets, greeting cards, postcards, inscriptions, calendars, wall decorations for the synagogue and sukkah, and more. Gross claimed that these materials serve as a valuable documentary source for the study of Jewish history and culture.
Here are some examples from the Library's collection of Simchat Torah flags from the 19th century.
Have a chag sameach!
