For the political party, see Hatikva. For the Tel Aviv neighbourhood, see
Hatikva Quarter. "Hatikvah" is the national anthem of
Israel. Its lyrics are adapted from a poem by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish
poet from Złoczów, 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", in
the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austro-Hungary, today Zolochiv, Ukraine.
Imber emigrated to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s and 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 this poem Imber puts into
words his thoughts and feelings in the wake of the establishment of Petah
Tikva, one of the first Jewish settlements in the Land of Israel under
Ottoman rule. Published in Imber's first book Barkai [The Shining Morning Star],
Jerusalem, 1886 , 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.
The British Mandate government briefly banned its public performance and
broadcast from 1919, in response to an increase in Arab anti-Zionist political
activity. 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. = 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 in an amendment to the Flag and Coat-of-Arms
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 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
, Cucuruz cu frunza-n sus [Maize with up-standing leaves] and the Kateryna
Kucheryava . 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. 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 and English translation are listed below.
Some people compare the first line of the refrain, “Our hope is not yet lost”,
to the opening of the Polish national anthem, Poland Is Not Yet Lost or the
Ukrainian national anthem, Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished. This line may also be
a Biblical allusion to Ezekiel’s "Vision of the Dried Bones", 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, while the independent
clause specifies the outcome. 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" with the word "קודש", thus reading the line: "To be a holy nation",
referring to the verse in Exodus 19:6 "וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ לִי מַמְלֶכֶת
כֹּהֲנִים וְגוֹי קָדוֹש". Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook objected to the
secular thrust of Hatikvah and wrote an alternative anthem titled “HaEmunah” in
the hope that it would replace Hatikvah as the Israeli national anthem. Rav Kook
did not object to the singing of Hatikvah as he had great respect for
secular Jews, indicating that even in their work it was possible to see a
level of kedushah. = 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". 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. 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 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. 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 . Hatikvah – Hadracha Guide, Jewish Agency
for Israel . Israel’s National Anthem – Hatikva,
Jewish Virtual Library . ben Zion, Ilan, How an unwieldy romantic
poem and a Romanian folk song combined to produce ‘Hatikva’, The Times of
Israel .