Israel National Anthem

התקווה

Hatikvah

Written 1878

Adopted 2004

Lyrics Naftali Herz Imber

Music Samuel Cohen (based on Moldavian-Romanian folk tune)

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Key Facts

1. Hatikvah is in a minor key, which is rare among national anthems and gives it an elegiac rather than triumphant tone: it opens in D minor, moves into F major on the words of hope and returns to D minor at the end.
2. At the ceremony declaring Israel's independence on 14 May 1948, the guests spontaneously rose to sing Hatikvah; the song became the state anthem by law only in 2004.
3. Imber's original poem, 'Tikvatenu' ('Our Hope'), had nine stanzas. The anthem uses only the first stanza and an amended refrain, in which the old hope 'to return to the land of our fathers, the city where David encamped' became the hope 'to be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem'.

Israel National Anthem Lyrics

כָּל עוֹד בַּלֵּבָב פְּנִימָה נֶפֶשׁ יְהוּדִי הוֹמִיָּה, וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח קָדִימָה עַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה, עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ הַתִּקְוָה בַּת־שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם, לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ, אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם.

Translations are non-official and intended to convey meaning, not replace originals

Analysis

Editorial

Written in 1878 by Naftali Herz Imber, a poet from Zolochiv in Galicia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Ukraine) who was living at the time in Iași, Romania. Samuel Cohen adapted the melody from a Romanian folk song; the tune goes back to 'La Mantovana', a 16th-century Italian song, and is also heard in Smetana's 'Vltava' (Moldau). The title means 'The Hope,' and the anthem expresses a 2,000-year longing for return to the ancestral homeland.