Origins of Hatikvaah

The hope that is expressed as the Jewish people’s two thousand  year longing, to live in freedom in our own land, is summed up in the words of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem. Hatikvah first existed as a multi-stanza poem written by Jewish nationalist, Naphtali Herz Inber, in 1878. The melody, according to legend, was most likely derived from The Fatherland (Die Moldau) composed by Czech composer,  Bedřich Smetana in 1875.

Hear a piano arrangement of The Moldau here. The famous melody begins at 1:23

Smetana, the legend continues, had based his melody on an Italian Renaissance melody, La Mantovana.

These melodies consist of a rising, minor scale followed by a descent back to the root of the scale. It is a common melodic phrase and appears in many compositions and songs. For argument’s sake, the song, I’m a Little Teapot, follows the same progression of rising and then descent, albeit in a major key.

The words of Hatikvah make minor changes to the original poem on which it is based. The version we know today reads,

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope that is two thousand years old,

To be a free nation in our land,
The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.

At the time of the mingling of Inber’s words with Smetana’s melody the State of Israel was still a dream. Israel was not yet a free nation in the Jews’ land. The original words reflect an older understanding or concept of what the status of a Jewish state was. The original stanza reads,

Our hope is not yet lost,
The ancient hope,
To return to the land of our fathers;

The city where David encamped.

These pre-Israel words can be heard in a soul stirring recording of Holocaust survivors from Bergen Belson belting out the words on April 15, 1945.

However we have learned Hatikvah, the anthem should hopefully stir our emotions and fill our hearts with pride at being Jewish. We are fortunate to live in a time where there is an Israel, a tiny country that makes huge contributions to the entire world. And we can draw inspiration from our Israeli brothers and sisters while still living in “exile.” The Temple in Jerusalem and the wall that is its remnant pulls on our heart strings as powerful icons of our collective history.

As long as our precious Wall
Appears before our eyes,
And over the destruction of our Temple

An eye still wells up with tears.

Hear, oh my brothers in the lands of exile,

The voice of one of our visionaries,
Who declares that only with
the very last Jew,
Only there is the end of our hope!