[HANASHIR:14340] Re: Another Hatikvah question

[DAcker9854 <DAcker9854...>]

I have followed only a few of the comments relating to Hatikvah, but thought 
this material might be helpful. It' s stuff I've compiled from a variety of 
sources, most of them in Hebrew, and I use it when I teach Hatikvah.

Enjoy.

Hatikvah was first published in 1886, in the journal "Barkai."  It was 
originally titled "Tikvatienu," which means our hope and was  a reference to 
the community of Petach Tikvah, which had just been founded.  The original 
poem had nine verses, with the verse that we use as the closing ("Od lo 
avdah") as the opening verse.  Imber would travel from community to 
community, declaiming his poetry and making revisions as suggested by people 
he respected.  This is one of the reasons there are different "texts" extant, 
each claiming to be original and correct. It's also one of the reasons there 
are a number of communities in Israel claiming to be "the home of the 
national anthem."

The poem was also initially set to a different tune, one that had a different 
melody for each verse. For obvious reasons, it never caught on and there is 
no manuscript available to reconstruct it in any way.

Hatikvah gained popularity among the Zionists, and at the end of the 4th  
Zionist Congress in London, after the congregated delegates sang "God Save 
the King", they spontaneously burst into Hatikvah. The song's place as the 
anthem of the Zionist movement was solidified at the 6th Zionist Congress, in 
1903, which dealt with the Uganda option. Again, at the end of a bitter 
Congress, the delegates stood and sang Hatikvah and more than anything, that 
established it as the musical embodiment of the Zionist ideal.

As a national anthem, Hatikvah is unique (or almost unique) for the following 
reasons: 

a. Hatikvah was written before the establishment of the State of Israel.  
Most anthems are written after the country they symbolize come into being.

b. It was written in Hebrew, but before Hebrew became the official language 
of the State of Israel.  When Hatikvah was written, it was not clear if 
Hebrew would be revived and would survive.

c. It was written outside of Palestine (in Romania).  It echoes Yehuda 
Halevy's poem "My heart is in the east and I am at the edge of the west." 
Again, most national anthems are written within the boundaries of the country 
they symbolize.

(Much has been made of the fact that Hatikvah has never been officially 
"proclaimed" by the Knesset to be Israel's national anthem. I'm less 
impressed: The US Congress didn't formally adopt The Star Spangled Banner 
until 1931.  

A close reading of the poem ( as we sing it) reveals that it is written in 
two parts. The first part (Kol od, which is how each verse began in the 
original poem) is the condition. If these conditions are met, then our hope 
will be/can be fulfilled.  What are the conditions?  There are two 
conditions: The first is that as long as each Jew maintains a Jewish soul 
within his/her heart.  This is a general condition, a sense of Jewish 
awareness. The second condition is that each Jew will continue to "look 
eastward" and center themselves on Israel.  (The word in Hebrew for east is 
Biblical--"kedma" it also means forward.).  This condition is far more 
specific, being centered on Israel.  The notion of a conditional arrangement, 
of course, it not new to Judaism, and echoes the brit. the Jewish heart.  
Where else do we find the notion of a contingent vision (conditional 
covenant?)  

The second part of the poem describes the hope. What is interesting is that 
the yearning for a return to Zion is an integral part of Jewish religion. 
However, God is not mentioned in the poem .  Imber took a religious value and 
recast it in secular language.  He defines redemption as nationalist hope.  
The specific hope he mentions, of course, is to be a free people in our own 
land.  This raises the existential question (today) of whether we can be free 
without soveriegnty.

The last line refers to Zion and Jerusalem.  While Zion is one of the names 
for Jerusalem, there is a distinction between Zion and the entire land of 
Israel.  Both are required for fulfillment of the dream.

Finally, if you look at the grammar, the first verse is in first person 
singular, the second verse is in first person plural.  The fulfillment of the 
hope of the people is dependent upon the actions of each individual Jew. 

In thinking about Hatikvah as Israel's national anthem today, it stands as a 
symbol of a basic tension within Zionist ideology:  Is Israel to be a state 
for the Jews, or a state for all its citizens?

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