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 Hatikvah
Hatikvah
("The Hope") Israel's National Anthem
Transliteration:
Kol od balevav p'nimah
Nefesh Yehudi homiyah
Ulfa'atey mizrach kadimah
Ayin l'tzion tzofiyah
Od lo avdah tikvatenu
Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim
L'hiyot am chofshi b'artzenu
Eretz Tzion v'Yerushalayim
Translation:
As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And forward to the East
To Zion, an eye looks
Our hope will not be lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
The title of the national anthem, Hatikvah, means “The Hope.” It was
written by Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909), who moved to Palestine in 1882 from
Galicia. The melody was arranged by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldavia,
from a musical theme in Smetana's "Moldau" that is based on an an old
Modavian-Rumanian folk song. This moving song was adopted as the anthem of the
Zionist movement. The song was well suited to the Zionist cause, and was
sung in settlements throughout Eretz Yisroel, as well as Zionist
congresses.
Hatikva expresses the hope of the Jewish people, that they would someday
return to the land of their forefathers as prophesied in the Torah. The
Jewish people were exiled from Israel in 70 B.C.E. by the Roman army led by Titus
who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. During the two thousand years of exile,
the Jewish people said special daily prayers for return to Israel while facing
the East in the direction of Jerusalem. They continued to celebrate the Jewish holidays according
to the seasons and calendar. Zion is synonymous with Israel and Jerusalem, and now that
Israel has become a State, this hope has become a reality. At the
declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, Hatikvah was sung in the opening
ceremony and played by the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.
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Congregation
Kneseth Israel