An Ironic National Anthem

Chaya Oliver
Honors College, Florida Atlantic University

Several months ago I wrote an article that spoke to why I was still planning on spending the fall semester of my senior year of college in Israel. Well, here I am studying and living in Tel Aviv and as such I no longer feel like an outside observer whose thoughts are simply with Israel. I must now learn to deal with many of the same issues that Israelis have been dealing with for decades.

Although I was almost certain that calm would by no means be the norm the entire time that I was here, I still maintained the hope that I could be wrong. Yet, I have been here for less than three weeks and already there have been three terror attacks, the worst of them being the bus bombing in Jerusalem on Tuesday, August 19th. That night I found myself lying in bed wondering, "How do Israelis deal with this all of the time?"

An answer to my question came the next day when, in doing research for this article, I asked some Israelis what "HaTikvah" meant to them. Several people said that to them "HaTikvah" symbolized the hope that one day we will be able to live in our own land without fear. Upon hearing this I recalled another respondent who had argued that "HaTikvah" should not be the Israeli national anthem because it does not capture the experience of most modern day Israelis.

The words of "HaTikvah" were written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a Galician poet from Bohemia. The melody was adapted by Samuel Cohen from a Moldavian-Romanian folksong, "The Cart and the Ox." The melody is in a minor key, and thus both the words and the music represent the plaintive wailing of the Eastern European diaspora, rather than the rejoicing of the in-gathering of the exiles.

The last stanza of "HaTikvah" reads, "still our hope is not lost ... to be a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." Although we do now officially have our own state, we are still not "a free people in our own land." Only when we can leave our homes, get on a bus, go shopping in a mall, eat at a pizzeria, and return home to our families without worrying about being killed in a bombing, will we be "a free people in our own land." Only when mothers can send their children to school without being afraid of snipers shooting at them, will we be "a free people in our own land." Only when our young men and women can stop risking their lives in defense of our land, will we be "a free people in our own land."

It is true that "HaTikvah" is historically a song from the Eastern European diaspora, but it carries a message that all Jews, both in the diaspora and in Israel, can relate to. Its wailing melody expresses the fact that we are indeed still a people in mourning and to this day we still turn our hearts and prayers "toward Zion" because the yearning that HaTikvah expresses has not yet been fulfilled. We are not yet "a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." Yet, "our hope is not lost".