A young man from Galicia, named Naphtali Herz Imber , inspired by the founding of Petah Tikvah in 1878, wrote a poem about his feelings of hope for the Jewish people to come back to their land.
The song, originally called “Tikvatenu” (Our Hope), later became “Hatikvah,” the national anthem of the State of Israel. One of the main ideas of the poem/song Hatikva was taken from the words of Ezekiel the prophet. In the famous chapter 37, where Ezekiel describes the prophetic vision of the valley of the dry bones. He says that at one point, the people of Israel will be so desperate and hopeless that they will say: we are doomed to disappear, we are dead, buried, “our hope is lost” (in Hebrew: abda tikvatenu). To this phrase HaTikva comes to say, now that we have Medinat Israel, “ ‘od lo abda tikvatenu”, our hope is definitely NOT lost.
Imber was born in 1856 into a Hasidic family. He received a traditional education, and left home at an early age to wander around the world. He came to Palestine in 1882 and stayed for six years writing essays, poetry and articles for Hebrew periodicals.
Tikvatenu, was first published in 1886, although it had initially been read in public as early as 1882 to a group of farmers in Rishon LeZion who received it enthusiastically.
Among them was Samuel Cohen, who heard the poem and enjoyed it so much that he promptly set it to music.
“Hatikvah” was sung at the conclusion of the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basle in 1903, the last congress presided over by Theodor Herzl, who died tragically the following year. The anthem was sung at all subsequent Zionist Congresses, and at the 18th Congress, held in Prague in 1933, it was officially confirmed as the Zionist anthem.
“Tikvatenu” became the unofficial anthem of Jewish Palestine under the British mandate. At the Declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, “Hatikvah” was sung by the assembly at its opening ceremony.
(Adapted from Hatikvah – The Hope by Dulcy Leibler)
As you can see, the original text of haTikva, pre Medinat Israel, was different from the one we have today. It was five times longer and it included the Jewish aspiration of “coming back to the land of our forefathers, and to the city founded by King David (=Jerusalem)” od lo abda tikvatenu, hatikva hanoshana, lashub leEretz Abotenu, leir bah David chana.”
Once the State of Israel was established and the People of Israel were settled in the land of our forefathers the last eight words were changed and a adapted to the new reality.
