This version of “Hatikvah” was written on the back of a medical form by its original author Naftali Herz Imber as he lay on his deathbed in the Beth Israel Hospital in New York. Jeanette Robinson Murphy, an American folk singer, visited Imber a short while before his death, and he gave it to her.
Underneath the poem are the author’s signature and the Hebrew year 5668 (1908). On the side of the picture one can see the Hebrew date, Shevat 5696 (1936) and the words, “A present from Jeanette Robinson Murphy.” This was written by Abraham Schwadron, who collected this artifact among many others and donated his collection to the National Library of Israel.
Naftali Herz Imber wrote the poem “Tikvateinu” in 1877, and it was published in his book Barkai in 1886. Shmuel Cohen composed the music for the anthem in 1888, based on the melody of a European folk song. The lengthy poem (of nine stanzas) was abridged and first sung at the 3rd Zionist Congress in 1903. It was officially accepted as the Zionist movement’s anthem at the 18th Zionist Congress in 1933. In 1948, it was adopted as the national anthem of the State of Israel.
The words from this early version changed after being selected as the national anthem. In the first stanza (above) there is a very small discrepancy: the original, “his eye gazes toward Zion,” became “an eye gazes toward Zion” in the accepted anthem. The changes to the second stanza were more substantial.
This poem represents the merging of the Diaspora and Israel through Zionism. Naftali Herz Imber was born in Ukraine, wrote the anthem for the Jewish homeland in Romania, published it in Jerusalem, and died in New York. The song was sung by Jewish communities all over the world before it was adopted as the Israeli national anthem.
More recently, “Hatikvah” has become a point of conflict within Israeli society due to the claim that it speaks to only one specific group, the Jewish population of Israel, but ignores other sectors of Israeli society. It is for this reason that Arab citizens of Israel have begun challenging the national anthem. In addition, some religious Jews oppose the anthem for leaving out any mention of God or the Torah. Nonetheless,”Hatikva” has come to represent not only the State of Israel but also the Jewish people as a whole.
The accepted version:
As long as in the heart within,
The Jewish soul yearns,
And toward the eastern edges, onward,
An eye gazes toward Zion.
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.
