Hatikvah

הַתִּקְוָה

English: The Hope
HaTikvah
The lyrics of 'Hatikvah' above a semi transparent flag of Israel.
National anthem of  Israel
Lyrics	Naphtali Herz Imber, 1878
Music	Samuel Cohen, 1888
Adopted	1897 (First Zionist Congress) 1948 (unofficially) 2004 (officially)
Music sample
Hatikvah (instrumental)

Jewish and Israeli music
Religious
Contemporary Piyyut Zemirot Nigun Pizmonim Baqashot
Secular
Klezmer Sephardic Mizrahi Mainstream and jazz Classical Jewish art music
Israel
Hatikvah Jerusalem of Gold
Piyyutim
Adon Olam Geshem Lekhah Dodi Ma'oz Tzur Yedid Nefesh Yigdal
Dance
Israeli folk dancing Ballet Horah Yemenite dancing
Music for Holidays
Shabbat Hanukkah Blessings Oh Chanukah Dreidel song Al Hanisim Mi Y'malel Ner Li Passover (Haggadah) Ma Nishtana Dayenu Adir Hu Chad Gadya Echad Mi Yodea

"Hatikvah" (Hebrew: הַתִּקְוָה, pronounced [hatikˈva], lit. English: "The Hope") is the national anthem of Israel. Its lyrics are adapted from a poem by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Złoczów (today Zolochiv, Ukraine), then part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary. Imber wrote the first version of the poem in 1877, while the guest of a Jewish scholar in Iași, Romania. The romantic anthem's theme reflects the Jews' 2,000-year-old hope of returning to the Land of Israel, restoring it, and reclaiming it as a sovereign nation.

History

Lyrics

The text of Hatikvah was written in 1878 by Naphtali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Zolochiv, a city often referred to by its nickname "The City of Poets",^[1] in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, today Zolochiv, Ukraine. In the early 1880s Imber moved to Ottoman-governed Palestine (also called the Land of Israel), where lived in two or more of the first Jewish colonies. The foundation of Hatikvah is Imber's nine-stanza poem named Tikvatenu ("Our Hope"), in which Imber puts into words his thoughts and feelings following the establishment of one of the first Jewish settlements, Petah Tikva (whose name means "Opening of Hope"). Published in Imber's first book Barkai [The Shining Morning Star], Jerusalem, 1886 ,^[2] the poem was subsequently adopted as an anthem by the "Hovevei Zion" and later by the Zionist Movement at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The text was later revised by the settlers of Rishon LeZion, subsequently undergoing a number of other changes.

Before the establishment of the State of Israel

Hatikvah was chosen as the anthem of the First Zionist Congress in 1897.^[3]

The British Mandate government briefly banned its public performance and broadcast from 1919, in response to an increase in Arab anti-Zionist political activity.^[4]

A former member of the Sonderkommando reports that the song was spontaneously sung by Czech Jews in the entryway to the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chamber in 1944. While singing they were beaten by Waffen-SS guards.^[5]

Adoption as national anthem

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, Hatikvah was unofficially proclaimed the national anthem. It did not officially become the national anthem until November 2004, when an abbreviated and edited version was sanctioned by the Knesset^[3] in an amendment to the Flag and Coat-of-Arms Law (now renamed the Flag, Coat-of-Arms, and National Anthem Law).

In its modern rendering, the official text of the anthem incorporates only the first stanza and refrain of the original poem. The predominant theme in the remaining stanzas is the establishment of a sovereign and free nation in the Land of Israel, a hope largely seen as fulfilled with the founding of the State of Israel.

Music

The melody for Hatikvah derives from La Mantovana, a 16th-century Italian song, composed by Giuseppe Cenci (Giuseppino del Biado) ca. 1600 with the text "Fuggi, fuggi, fuggi da questo cielo". Its earliest known appearance in print was in the del Biado's collection of madrigals. It was later known in early 17th-century Italy as Ballo di Mantova . This melody gained wide currency in Renaissance Europe, under various titles, such as the Pod Krakowem (folk song) (in Polish) , Cucuruz cu frunza-n sus [Maize with up-standing leaves] (in Romanian)  and the Kateryna Kucheryava (in Ukrainian) .^[6] The melody is also very similar to a musical theme famously used by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana in his symphonic poem celebrating Bohemia, Má vlast, as Vltava (also known under the German title as Die Moldau). Smetana's theme was based on a Czech folk song, "Kočka leze dírou".

The adaptation of the music for Hatikvah was done by Samuel Cohen in 1888. Cohen himself recalled many years later that he had hummed Hatikvah based on the melody from the song he had heard in Romania, Carul cu boi [The Ox Driven Cart] .

The harmony of Hatikvah follows a minor scale, which is often perceived as mournful in tone and is rarely encountered in national anthems. There is a modulating shift to Major key as the words Tikvatenu and Hatikva appear, both mingled with a romantic octave leap which gives new dramatic energy to the melodic line. As the title "The Hope" and the words suggest, the import of the song is optimistic and the overall spirit uplifting.

Official text

The official text of the national anthem corresponds to the first stanza and amended refrain of the original nine-stanza poem by Naftali Herz Imber. Along with the original Hebrew, the corresponding transliteration^{[lower-alpha 1]} and English translation are listed below.

	Hatikvah Recorded in 2004
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	Vocal BBC recording from 20 April 1945 of Jewish survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp singing Hatikvah, only five days after their liberation by Allied forces. The words sung are from the original poem by Imber.
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Some people compare the first line of the refrain, “Our hope is not yet lost” (“עוד לא אבדה תקוותנו”), to the opening of the Polish national anthem, Poland Is Not Yet Lost (Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła) or the Ukrainian national anthem, Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished (Ще не вмерла Україна; Šče ne vmerla Ukrajina). This line may also be a Biblical allusion to Ezekiel’s "Vision of the Dried Bones" (Ezekiel 37: "…Behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost"), describing the despair of the Jewish people in exile, and God’s promise to redeem them and lead them back to the Land of Israel.

The official text of Hatikvah is relatively short; indeed it is a single complex sentence, consisting of two clauses: the subordinate clause posits the condition ("As long as… A soul still yearns… And… An eye still watches…"), while the independent clause specifies the outcome ("Our hope is not yet lost… To be a free nation in our land").

Text of Tikvateinu by Naftali Herz Imber

Below is the full text of the original nine-stanza poem Tikvateinu by Naftali Herz Imber. The current version of the Israeli national anthem corresponds to the first stanza of this poem and the amended refrain.

Alternate proposals and objections

Religious objections to Hatikvah

Some observant Jews object to Hatikvah on the grounds that the anthem is too secular and lacks sufficient religious emphasis, such as not mentioning God or the Torah. Thus, some religious Zionists have altered the song by switching the word "חופשי" (free, which in modern Hebrew can allude to a secular Jew being free of mitzvot) with the word "קודש" (holy), thus reading the line: "To be a holy nation", referring to the verse in Exodus 19:6 "וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹש" (you shall be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation).

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook objected to the secular thrust of Hatikvah and wrote an alternative anthem titled “HaEmunah” ("The Faith") in the hope that it would replace Hatikvah as the Israeli national anthem. Rav Kook did not object to the singing of Hatikvah (and in fact endorsed it) as he had great respect for secular Jews, indicating that even in their work it was possible to see a level of kedushah (holiness).^[7]

Objections by non-Jewish Israelis

Some Arab Israelis object to Hatikvah due to its explicit allusions to Judaism. In particular, the text’s reference to the yearnings of “a Jewish soul” is often cited as preventing non-Jews from personally identifying with the anthem. In 2001, Saleh Tarif, the first Arab appointed to the Israeli cabinet in Israel's history, refused to sing "Hatikvah".^[8] Ghaleb Majadale, who in January 2007 became the first Muslim to be appointed as a minister in the Israeli cabinet, sparked a controversy when he publicly refused to sing the anthem, stating that the song was written for Jews only.^[9] In 2012, Salim Joubran, an Israeli Arab justice on Israel's Supreme Court, did not join in singing Hatikvah during a ceremony honoring the retirement of the court's chief justice, Dorit Beinisch.^[10]

From time to time proposals have been made to change the national anthem or to modify the text in order to make it more acceptable to non-Jewish Israelis.^[11][12] To date no such proposals have succeeded in gaining broad support.

See also

• National symbols of Israel

Notes

References

External links

• "Israel: Hatikvah", National anthem (audio with information and lyrics) .
• Hatikvah – Hadracha Guide, Jewish Agency for Israel .
• Israel’s National Anthem – Hatikva, Jewish Virtual Library .
• ben Zion, Ilan (16 April 2013), How an unwieldy romantic poem and a Romanian folk song combined to produce ‘Hatikva’, The Times of Israel .