Behind the song
The song’s story
Before it was an anthem
Naftali Herz Imber published Tikvatenu (Our Hope) in his 1886 poetry collection Barkai. The poem went through changes as it became the song known as Hatikvah. Its familiar present form was not fixed from the beginning.
A melody that already traveled
Samuel Cohen adapted a Romanian folk melody to Imber's words. Milken's history identifies the song Carul cu boi. Resemblance to a phrase in Smetana's The Moldau does not establish that Cohen copied the orchestral work: related tunes had traveled through different traditions.
A handwritten survival
The National Library of Israel holds Imber's 1908 handwritten version on the back of a medical form. Its wording differs from today's anthem. Even a song that seems inseparable from a nation has a history of individual hands, revision and transmission.
Our Russian adaptation
Olga Anikina's 2017 Russian version, sung by Elechka with guitar, is an authored adaptation rather than an official anthem translation. Her imagery and retained Hebrew phrases form the text we want to carry into English.
About this recording
A shining star and a restless heart lead into a collective promise: hope has endured for twenty centuries. The words turn repeatedly toward Zion and Jerusalem, retaining Hebrew phrases within the Russian lyric.
This is Elechka's voice-and-guitar recording of Olga Anikina's 2017 Russian adaptation of Hatikvah. The source Hebrew verses are by Naftali Herz Imber.