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Israel's Hope: 'Hatikva' Turns 10

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- For generations, a poem set to the simple but powerful strains of an old Romanian folk tune has echoed in the places where Jews gathered and shared the longing for a return to their covenant land -- biblical Judea and Samaria. 

They would sing it in the halls of Zionist conventions, the fields of a kibbutz in pre-state Palestine, and even at a German concentration camp at the end of World War II. Today that poem is Israel's national anthem, Hatikva or "The Hope."
 
Many are surprised to learn the anthem is officially only 10 years old, adopted by the Knesset on November 10, 2004.
 
A poet named Naftali Herz Imber from the Romanian region of Galicia published a work called "Tikvatenu" (Our Hope) in 1886. The Zionist movement was emerging from pogroms and persecution in many parts of the world, especially in Europe and Russia.

In 1888, the poem was joined with a Romanian folk melody by Samuel Cohen called "Carul Cuboi," which roughly translated means "Cart with Oxen."  Some believe the melody goes back even further, to an Italian madrigal in the early 17th century.
 
Imber's poem was an inspiration to many Jews, but it was long. Over the years, it was shortened to just a couple of stanzas.
 
As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning, deep in the heart,
With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,
Then our hope -- the 2,000-year-old hope -- will not be lost:
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
 
In 1903, the sixth Zionist Congress gathered in Basel, Switzerland, to vote on the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Delegates there spontaneously closed their meeting with "Hatikva." Thirty years later, as Hitler was securing power in Germany, the Zionist movement adopted it as its official anthem.
 
One of the most moving renditions of the song came after the allies liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from the Nazis in 1945. The surviving Jews in the camp insisted on singing "Hatikva," as the BBC reported it to the world on radio. They barely had strength to sing, and their fellow inmates and relatives were still dying around them in the camp.
 
Perhaps that is one reason modern Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, insisted the song become the country's anthem.
 
Hatikva has had its share of controversy. Many Jewish musical experts were unimpressed by its strength and one composer even called it a "loathsome hymn," according to a report in The Times of Israel.  Secular socialists who founded modern Israel were partial to lyrics that would pay more homage to the economic class struggle.
 
After the 1967 Six-Day War, some preferred to adopt Naomi Shermer's legendary song, "Jerusalem of Gold," as the anthem.
 
Still, Hatikva's popularity among Israelis has remained high, and the Knesset approved it as the national anthem at the same time one of its greatest nemeses, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was dying.
 
As the country faces another uptick in terror attacks in and around Jerusalem, Israelis will continue to build their modern state with Hatikva --The Hope -- at the forefront.

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About The Author

John
Waage

John Waage has covered politics and analyzed elections for CBN New since 1980, including primaries, conventions, and general elections. He also analyzes the convulsive politics of the Middle East.