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| Hatikvah - Israeli National Anthem |
National Symbols of Israel – National Anthem
The title of the Israeli National Anthem is Hatikvah,
which means “The Hope” in Hebrew. The anthem symbolizes the undying hope of the
Jewish people through their long years of exile, that they would one day return
with Adonai’s help, to their independent homeland. The anthem was written in
1878 by Naphtali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew from Zolochiv (today in
Lviv Oblast), who moved to the Land of Israel in the early 1880s.
“Hatikvah” is one of only a few national anthems in the
world which is in a minor scale. Though it sounds mournful, the song is optimistic
and uplifting as the title suggests. The anthem's theme revolves around the
nearly 2,000-year-old hope of the Jewish people for freedom and sovereignty in
the Land of Israel, a national dream that was later realized with the founding
of the modern State of Israel in 1948.
The words of the anthem are:
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 two-thousand-year-old hope —
will not be lost:
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
