Whose Hatikvah is it Anyway?
Naftali Herz Imber's "The Hope"
By Joseph Lowin

Barbra Streisand Sings Hatikvah

What does it mean that more than fifty years after the founding of the State of Israel we still sing a song that expresses the idea that our hope to be a free people in our own land is not yet lost? Of course, such words made sense in 1878 in Moldavia-Romania. That’s when and where Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909), in response to a request from "a well-known nationalist," wrote a poem on the occasion of the founding of the city of Petah Tikvah (which in Hebrew means, "The Beginning of Hope"), and called it Tikvateinu ("Our Hope"). The theme of the poem is "As long as there’s life, there’s hope."

How that poem became Hatikvah, the national anthem of the Jewish people, can be related succinctly. The first thing you have to do is add music. A resident of Rishon le-Tsiyyon, one Shmuel Cohen, set the poem to a Moldavian-Romanian folk song that was so popular that composer Bedrich Smetana used it as the basis for his symphonic poem, "The Moldau." Then, you have to make the words accessible. Over time, the nine stanzas of the original poem were reduced to the first two. Then, again over the years, the order of these first two stanzas was reversed. Some words were changed and some were added by the Israeli public. One simple sentence resulted:

"As long as a Jewish soul yearns within a Jewish heart and a Jewish eye gazes toward Zion in the East, our 2,000 year-old hope to be a free nation in our own land, in the Land of Zion, Jerusalem, is not yet lost

Curiously, Hatikvah is the only anthem in the world that can claim to be sung by more people in the Diaspora than in the homeland. It is also the only one that is sung most frequently by people whose native tongue is not the language of the anthem.The most important date relating to Hatikvah is "Not yet." Written in 1878, set to music in 1882, first published in its original form as a poem in 1886, the anthem was sung spontaneously at the Eighth Zionist Congress in 1907. It was adopted officially as the "hymnon" of the Zionist movement (together with the "Jewish Flag" of blue and white) by the 18^th Zionist Congress in 1933.

It has not yet been adopted by the Israeli Knesset as the National Anthem of the State of Israel. (For the sake of comparison, the Star Spangled Banner was adopted at the National Anthem of the United States in 1931. What’s taking so long? Why can’t the Israelis decide? There are many possible answers, including that Hatikvah is, first and foremost, the national anthem of the Jewish people, and only subsequently that of the Jewish State. In addition, the competition is fierce, and there are many opinions. Some would prefer to adopt one of the Psalms, others a poem by Bialik (specifically, one known popularly as "Tehezaknah," ("May Our Hands Be Strengthened"). And then there are those, both in Israel and the Diaspora who would not have a problem with adopting Naomi Shemer’s song from the time of the Six Day War in 1967,"Jerusalem of Gold," as the National Anthem of both the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

Chances are, however, that Hatikvah will remain. There is perhaps no stronger emotion than hope and, perhaps, no Jewish value more important.

*This article is based on the research of Prof. Zvia Ginor, aleha ha-shalom, and is dedicated to her memory.