A young man from Galitzia (hoy en Ucrania), named Naphtali Herz Imber, inspired by the founding of Petah Tikvah in 1878, wrote a poem expressing his hopes for the Jewish people’s return to their land.
The song, originally called “Tikvatenu” (Our Hope), later became “Hatikvah,” the national anthem of the State of Israel. One of the central themes of the poem/song “Hatikva” draws from the words of the prophet Ezekiel. In the renowned chapter 37, where Ezekiel describes the prophetic vision of the valley of the dry bones, he prophesies that the people of Israel, in their despair, will proclaim: “We are doomed to disappear, we are dead, buried, ‘our hope is lost'” (in Hebrew: abda tikvatenu). In response, “Hatikva” asserts, now with the establishment of 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 early to wander the world. He arrived in Palestine in 1882 and spent six years there, writing essays, poetry, and articles for Hebrew periodicals.
“Tikvatenu” was first published in 1886, though it had already been publicly read as early as 1882 to a group of farmers in Rishon LeZion, who received it enthusiastically.
Among them was Samuel Cohen, who so enjoyed the poem that he immediately set it to music.
“Hatikvah” was sung after 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 performed 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, the assembly performed “Hatikvah” at its opening ceremony.
