“Hatikvah” 

BY ADIEL RAMIERZ

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Over the past year and a half, Jews across the diaspora have worked to combat the current rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. From the March for Israel on the National Mall to Israeli music blasting from speakers at local rallies; from the Israel Day Parade to the yellow ribbons decorating lapels and backpacks, a message of joy, strength, and hope has prevailed against this hostile tide. Jewish hope drives the current moment, but it’s not the first time. Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah,” means “The Hope,” and the anthem’s history and message have much to teach us today.

“Hatikvah” is the national anthem of the State of Israel, and it is a clear expression of Zionist aspirations. Zionism, the idea that Jews have a right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland, encompasses many things. It is a political identity, a historical narrative, a cultural and linguistic revolution, and a modern definition of the Jewish people as a nation. European romantic and nationalist movements of the 1800s inspired this political shift towards a modern Zionist understanding of Am Yisrael, as opposed to a purely religious understanding of Judaism. 

But Jews have been defined by our peoplehood since it was promised to Avraham in the Torah. In the Book of Genesis, the Jews are referred to as both a goy or an am, two words that translate to nation or people. Secular proto-Zionists read religious, liturgical, and philosophical texts as historical proofs, gleaning Jewish nationhood from the Brit Bein HaBetarim—the founding covenant between God and Avraham—and classical commentaries. Also, the breadth and depth of biblical and rabbinic texts describing the Jewish longing for our homeland showed proto-Zionists that Jews have always thought of ourselves in this nationalistic way. 

Taking cues from these religious works, proto-Zionists created a library of imagery and metaphors that signaled Zionist themes of hope, struggle, rebirth, and longing. These symbols contributed to the development of a Zionist literary culture of poetry, stories, and essays. By the late nineteenth century, the proto-Zionists had created a new Zionist vernacular by effectively secularizing religious writings, turning them into a cultural, historical Zionist heritage. “Hatikvah” was born out of this Zionist movement and artistic tradition. 

That brings us to Naftali Herz Imber, born in 1856. He was an eccentric Austrian poet of national acclaim, who, in his early 20s, travelled to Palestine as an assistant to a British diplomat and lived there from 1882 to 1887. In Israel, Imber enjoyed traveling around the various moshavim (early settlements) and reading his poems to the First Aliyah pioneers whom he met there. He went on to compose the original poem “Tikvatenu,” a nine-stanza exploration of Zionist hope, around 1878, and published it in his 1886 book Barkai. The book was published in Hebrew, when the language was still primarily used in literary contexts and not conversational ones. 

Imber’s “Tikvatenu” was shared widely among the pioneers and soon became popular throughout Palestine and the Jewish Diaspora. The poem, influenced by the Zionist, nationalist, and romantic movements sweeping Europe in the late nineteenth century, contains themes of return, peoplehood, and national pride. Although some criticized it for its overly romantic tones, the poem carved out a distinguished place in the emerging Zionist culture. 

As it circulated, “Tikvatenu” underwent changes and adaptations, so much so that for a while, there was no definitive version of the poem. In the diaspora, the original poem, with its biblical references and messianic themes of hope, was prevalent. In the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, however, the poem became more secularized and in line with Zionist themes of settlement and pioneering. The final version that is now Israel’s national anthem is the result of much collaborative revision.

The original poem was laden with biblical allusions and messianic themes. Imber was raised in a traditional Jewish home, so he would have been familiar with the messianic texts of the Jewish tradition. Ezekiel 37:11-12 is the most obvious reference found in the poem. The Biblical text describes a prophecy of redemption and how the Jews will not recognize their salvation as it arrives: 

וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֮ אֵלַי֒ בֶּן־אָדָ֕ם הָעֲצָמ֣וֹת הָאֵ֔לֶּה כׇּל־בֵּ֥ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל הֵ֑מָּה הִנֵּ֣ה אֹמְרִ֗ים יָבְשׁ֧וּ עַצְמוֹתֵ֛ינוּ וְאָבְדָ֥ה תִקְוָתֵ֖נוּ נִגְזַ֥רְנוּ לָֽנוּ׃

לָכֵן֩ הִנָּבֵ֨א וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ אֲלֵיהֶ֗ם כֹּה־אָמַר֮ אֲדֹנָ֣י ה֒ הִנֵּה֩ אֲנִ֨י פֹתֵ֜חַ אֶת־קִבְרֽוֹתֵיכֶ֗ם וְהַעֲלֵיתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֛ם מִקִּבְרוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם עַמִּ֑י 

וְהֵבֵאתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם אֶל־אַדְמַ֥ת יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

And I was told, “O mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone; we are doomed.’ Prophesy, therefore, and say to them: Thus said the Sovereign GOD: I am going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, O My people, and bring you to the land of Israel.” (37:11-12)

In Imber’s poem, however, this narrative is changed to, “Our hope is not yet lost.” Imber turns Ezekiel’s prophetic story of the Jewish denial of salvation on its head, instead describing the Jewish people having hope when they are not yet saved. 

Another biblical allusion in the original poem is found in Isaiah 29:1, where Jerusalem is described as “קִרְיַ֖ת חָנָ֣ה דָוִ֑ד” or “the city where David encamped.” According to the rabbinic tradition, the human Messiah will be a descendent of King David. By referencing King David in a poem about Jewish hope for returning to Israel, Imber evoked a longstanding Jewish messianic message. This particular line was later revised around 1905 by Yehuda Leib Matmon-Cohen, the founder of the historic Tel Aviv Gymnasia school. He changed the line from, “Our hope is not yet lost / The ancient hope / To return to the land of our fathers / The city where David encamped,” to, “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.” 

This revision made the poem more appealing as an anthem for the political Zionist movement, whose longing for sovereignty was secular rather than religious. Although other biblical allusions to God were deleted or replaced from Imber’s original poem, elements of religious language remained in what would become “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem. More importantly, the biblical reference to Jerusalem—Zion—was kept in the anthem. 
Jewish history darkened in the decade leading up to Israel’s independence. As the Zionist movement fought the British Mandate in Palestine and the Jews faced near-annihilation in the Holocaust, the hope of Imber’s poem endured. Five days after their liberation from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the freed Jewish prisoners gathered to sing “Hatikvah” during a Kabbalat Shabbat service. It was subsequently sung at the Tel Aviv Museum after the establishment of Israel in 1948 and continues to be recited today as an unofficial prayer in many diaspora congregations. “Hatikvah’s” combination of religious language and Zionist ideas, first articulated in Imber’s “Tikvatenu,” has made it an enduring musical symbol of Jewish strength, determination, and, most importantly, tikvah to this day.