Israel's Olympic Flag Bearers

Basketball player Avraham Shneor led Israel's inaugural Olympic delegation at the 1952 Helsinki Games, carrying the national flag at the opening ceremony.[2] The first delegation comprised 25 athletes competing in five sports, and Shneor was a leading basketball player who had also served as the first captain of Israel's national basketball team.[2]

At the 1956 Melbourne Games, diver Yoav Raanan carried Israel's flag.[2] Israel sent only three competitors to Melbourne — its smallest Olympic delegation — because of the Sinai War, and Raanan had finished ninth in the three-metre springboard event.[2] Discus thrower Gideon Ariel became the only Israeli identified by the source as carrying the flag at two Summer Olympic opening ceremonies, serving at both the 1960 Rome Games and the 1964 Tokyo Games.[2] At Rome, his selection followed an Olympic Committee meeting and may have been influenced by a discus-throwing record approaching the world standard; at Tokyo, the delegation chose him again even though he had not sought the role.[2]

Swimmer Gershon Shafe stood at the head of the Israeli delegation at the 1968 Mexico City Games. A veteran of three Olympic appearances, he described the honor of being entrusted with the flag at his final Games as deeply meaningful.[2] At the 1972 Munich Olympics, marksman Henry Hershkowitz — who had immigrated from Romania — carried the flag at the opening ceremony.[2] Days after completing his competition, terrorists attacked the Israeli delegation's quarters, murdering eleven people connected with the delegation, including coach Kehat Shor; Hershkowitz escaped.[2]

Four years later, sprinter Esther Roth-Shachamorov led Israel's delegation at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, carrying a flag bearing eleven black stripes in memory of those killed at Munich. She described the ceremony as a symbolic declaration that Israel would not surrender to terrorism.[2] At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, marathon runner Zehava Shmueli was selected; she had become the first Israeli to achieve the Olympic qualifying standard for the women's marathon and finished 30th in the race.[4] Shooter Yitzhak Yonasi led the delegation at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, carrying the flag while saluting as an Israel Defense Forces officer; he had finished eighth in the 10-metre air-rifle event at Los Angeles and subsequently improved the Israeli record by ten points.[4]

Sailor Eldad Amir carried the flag at the 1992 Barcelona Games, where Israel would go on to win its first two Olympic medals — a silver by judoka Yael Arad and a bronze by judoka Oren Smadja.[4] At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, fencer Dr. Lydia Hatuel-Zuckerman, the most experienced athlete in the Israeli delegation, was selected toward the end of her career; she finished 13th, at the time the highest Olympic result achieved by Israeli fencing.[4] Triple jumper Rogel Nachum, holder of Israel's triple-jump record of 17.20 metres, carried the flag at the 2000 Sydney Games, having also placed fourth at the European Championships and sixth at the World Championships.[3]

Judoka Arik Ze'evi was chosen for the 2004 Athens Olympics before he had won an Olympic medal — a selection he described as a major source of motivation — and he subsequently won a bronze medal at those Games.[3] Kayaker Michael Kolganov, a bronze medalist in the 500-metre event at Sydney 2000 and a two-time world champion in the 200-metre event, carried Israel's flag at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.[3] Windsurfer Shahar Zubari, selected in keeping with the Israeli Olympic Committee's practice of honoring the most recent Olympic medalist participating in the next Games, carried the flag at the 2012 London opening ceremony.[5] At the London closing ceremony, rhythmic gymnast Neta Rivkin bore the flag shortly after Israel's five-member rhythmic-gymnastics team had finished eighth.[6]

Rivkin returned to lead the delegation at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games — her third Olympics — and was described as a pioneering Israeli rhythmic gymnast and the first Israeli in the discipline to stand on an international podium.[3] The Rio closing-ceremony flag was carried by rhythmic-gymnastics team captain Ilana Koshbetzki as the remaining Israeli athletes marched into the stadium.[7] At the Tokyo 2020 Games, swimmer Yakov Toumarkin and triple jumper Hanna Knyazyeva-Minenko became the first pair to jointly carry Israel's flag, following an organizer decision to allow one male and one female athlete at the head of each delegation; the ceremony was held without spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[3] Rhythmic gymnast Linoy Ashram carried the flag at the Tokyo closing ceremony after winning Israel's third Olympic gold medal in the individual rhythmic-gymnastics competition.[8]

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, judoka Peter Paltchik — a bronze medalist in the mixed-team judo event at Tokyo — and swimmer Andi Murez, an American-born athlete who immigrated to Israel in 2014 and was competing at her third Games, jointly carried the flag at the opening ceremony.[9] The Paris closing-ceremony flag was carried by windsurfer Tom Reuveni and rhythmic-gymnastics captain Romi Paritzki, whose squad had won a silver medal at the Games.[10][11]

Israel first competed at the Winter Olympics in 1994 and has maintained an unbroken streak of Winter Games participation since then, though it has never sent more than ten athletes to any single Winter Olympics.[12][1] At the inaugural 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games, figure skater Michael "Misha" Shmerkin was the only member of Israel's team and marched in the opening ceremony on February 12. The available source does not explicitly identify him as flag bearer, but as the sole representative he led the delegation.[12]

Speed skater Vladislav Bykanov served as Israel's flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.[13] Figure skater Alexei Bychenko carried the flag at the 2018 Pyeongchang opening ceremony.[13] At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, figure skater Evgeni Krasnopolski and alpine skier Noa Szollos carried Israel's flag together; a report published before the ceremony had identified Krasnopolski as the scheduled flag bearer.[1][13]

The 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics introduced a logistical novelty: because the opening ceremonies were held simultaneously at two locations, Israel designated two flag bearers. Figure skater Mariia Seniuk carried Israel's flag at the main ceremony at San Siro Stadium in Milan, while skeleton racer Jared Firestone represented Israel at the parallel ceremony in Cortina.[14][15] The Games marked Israel's ninth Winter Olympic participation.[15] At the closing ceremony, alpine skier Barnabas Szollos carried the flag and was accompanied by members of Israel's bobsleigh team.[16] Szollos had competed in downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, and slalom during the Games.[12]

The Israeli flag at the Olympic Games carries symbolic weight extending beyond athletic achievement. At Helsinki in 1952, the blue-and-white flag appeared at the head of a delegation representing an independent Jewish state for the first time in Olympic history — a moment of national affirmation less than four years after Israel's establishment.[2] The Munich massacre of 1972, in which eleven people connected with the Israeli delegation were murdered by terrorists, transformed the flag-bearing role into an act of national remembrance as well as celebration.[2]

The selection criteria employed by the Israeli Olympic Committee have varied across the decades. In some Games, the honor was given to a senior or experienced member of the delegation; in others, it went to the most recent Olympic medalist or an athlete representative of Israel's achievements at that moment.[5][3] Several flag bearers have described the responsibility as one of the defining moments of their sporting careers, transcending any single competition result.[2][4] At Tokyo 2020, the joint flag-bearing arrangement added a male and female athlete at the head of the delegation under an organizer policy presented as promoting gender equality.[3]

The available sources do not provide a complete chronological list covering every Israeli Olympic opening and closing ceremony. Historical accounts sometimes describe an athlete as standing at the head of the Israeli delegation rather than using the explicit phrase "flag bearer," particularly for some earlier Games.[2][4] For Helsinki 1952, the verified historical account identifies Avraham Shneor as standing at the head of the inaugural delegation within a survey devoted to Israel's flag bearers.[2]

No source in the available record identifies Israel's flag bearers at the 1960, 1968, or 1976 closing ceremonies, nor for a number of other ceremonies not listed here. The 1980 Moscow Games are omitted because Israel did not participate.[1] The sources also disagree on whether Israel's 2026 Winter Olympic delegation should be counted as nine competitors or ten athletes when the bobsleigh alternate is included, so no delegation total is stated in the main chronology.