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Hatikvah

Hatikvah (Hebrew: הַתִּקְוָה‎, The Hope‎) is the Israeli national anthem. The anthem was written by Nafti Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew, who moved to Palestine in the early 1880s. The anthem's underlying message is about "hope", the wish of the Zionists that they would someday attain national independence in the Land of Israel. It was supposed to be an expression of his thoughts and feelings following the construction of one of the first Jewish settlements in Israel, Petah Tikvah (Door of Hope).

When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, HaTikvah was unofficially proclaimed the national anthem. It did not become the official anthem until November 2004, when it was sanctioned by the Knesset in an amendment to the "Flag and Coat-of-Arms Law" (now called "The Flag, Coat-of-Arms, and National Anthem Law").

In its modern rendering, the text of the anthem includes only the first stanza and refrain of the original poem. The most significant element in the additional stanzas (in addition to the hope of returning to Zion, a hope being seen as fulfilled) is the establishment of a sovereign and free nation in Eretz Yisrael.

The melody for Hatikvah is based on "La Mantovana", a 16th century Italian song. The modern adaptation of the music for Hatikvah is assumed to be composed by Samuel Cohen in 1888. He himself recalled many years later that he had adapted the melody from a Romanian folk-song, which shares many structural elements with Hatikvah.

Hatikvah is written in a minor key, which is often perceived as mournful in tone and thus rarely used in national anthems. However, as the title ("The Hope") and the words suggest, the import of the song is uplifting and optimistic in spirit.

Below is the current text (first stanza and the amended refrain of the original nine-stanza poem) in Hebrew, along with a transliteration and translation.

כל עוד בלבב פנימה
נפש יהודי הומיה,
ולפאתי מזרח קדימה,
עין לציון צופיה,

Kol od balevav penima
Nefesh yehudi homiya,
Ulfa'ate mizrakh kadima
Ayin letsion tsofiya.

As long as in the heart, within,
A Jewish soul is yearning,
And to the edges of the East, forward,
An eye gazes towards Zion,

עוד לא אבדה תקוותנו,
התקווה בת שנות אלפים,
להיות עם חופשי בארצנו,
ארץ ציון וירושלים

Od lo avda tikvatenu
Hatikva bat shnot alpayim,
Lehiyot am hofshi be'artsenu,
Erets Tsion ve'yeroushalayim.

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.