Hava Nagila

For the Party Animals song, see Hava Naquila (song).
Hava Nagila
Instrumental performance of Hava Nagila

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"Hava Nagila" (Hebrew: הבה נגילה, Havah Nagilah, "Let us rejoice") is an Israeli folk song traditionally sung at Jewish celebrations. It is perhaps the first modern Israeli folk song in the Hebrew language that has become a staple of band performers at Jewish weddings and bar/bat mitzvah celebrations. The melody is based on a Hassidic Nigun[1] and it was composed in 1915 in Ottoman Palestine, when Hebrew was being revived for the first time as a spoken language in almost 2,000 years (since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE). For the first time, Jews were being encouraged to speak Hebrew as a common language, instead of Yiddish, Arabic, Ladino, or other regional Jewish languages.

Origin

Abraham Zevi Idelsohn (1882–1938), a professor at Hebrew University, began cataloging all known Jewish music and teaching classes in musical composition; one of his students was a promising cantorial student, Moshe Nathanson,[2] who (with the rest of his class) was presented by the professor with a 19th-century, slow, melodious, chant (niggun or nigun) and assigned to add rhythm and words to fashion a modern Hebrew song. There are competing claims regarding Hava Nagila's composer, with both Idelsohn and Nathanson being suggested.[3][4]

The niggun he presented has been attributed to the Sadigurer Chasidim, who lived in what is now Ukraine,[3] which uses the Phrygian dominant scale common in music of Transylvania. The commonly used text was probably refined by Idelsohn.[5] [6]

In 1918, the song was one of the first songs designed to unite the early Yishuv [Jewish enterprise] that arose after the British victory in Palestine during World War I and the Balfour Declaration, declaring a national Jewish homeland in the lands newly liberated from Turkey by the Allies and entrusted to Britain under the Treaty of Versailles. Although Psalm 118 (verse 24) of the Hebrew Bible may have been a source for the text of "Hava Nagila", the expression of the song and its accompanying hora ("circle") dance was entirely secular in its outlook.

Lyrics

Transliteration Hebrew text English translation
Hava nagila
הבה נגילה
  Let's rejoice
Hava nagila
הבה נגילה
  Let's rejoice
Hava nagila ve-nismeḥa
הבה נגילה ונשמחה
  Let's rejoice and be happy
  (repeat)    
Hava neranenah
הבה נרננה
  Let's sing
Hava neranenah
הבה נרננה
  Let's sing
Hava neranenah ve-nismeḥa
הבה נרננה ונשמחה
  Let's sing and be happy
  (repeat)    
Uru, uru aḥim!
!עורו, עורו אחים
  Awake, awake, my brothers!
Uru aḥim be-lev sameaḥ
עורו אחים בלב שמח
  Awake my brothers with a happy heart
  (repeat line four times)    
Uru aḥim, uru aḥim!
!עורו אחים, עורו אחים
  Awake, my brothers, awake, my brothers!
Be-lev sameaḥ
בלב שמח
  With a happy heart

Note: The “ḥ” can be pronounced as a voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ] (as in classical Hebrew) or a voiceless uvular fricative [χ], as “ch” as in Bach (modern Hebrew pronunciation).

Notable performers

Use in sports

Association football

Ajax Amsterdam

Supporters of the Dutch association football club AFC Ajax, although not an official Jewish club, commonly use Jewish imagery. A central part of Ajax fans' culture, the song Hava Nagila can often be heard sung in the Stadium by the teams supporters, and at one point ringtones of "Hava Nagila" could even be downloaded from the club's official website.[19][20][21]

Tottenham Hotspur

Supporters of the English football club Tottenham Hotspur commonly refer to themselves as Yids and are strongly associated with Jewish symbolism and culture. The song "Hava Nagila" has been adopted as an anthem of sorts by the club, and is one of the most frequently sung songs at White Hart Lane.[22][23]

See also

References

  1. Loeffler, James. "Hava Nagila's Long, Strange Trip. The unlikely history of a Hasidic melody.". myjewishlearning.com. My Jewish Learning. Like many modern Israeli and popular Jewish songs, Hava Nagila began its life as a Hasidic melody in Eastern Europe
  2. Nathanson, who later worked in New York, most famously composed the nearly-universal melody that is sung with the Birkat Hamazon ("Grace After Meals").
  3. 1 2 3 Roberta Grossman, Director/Producer; Sophie Sartain, Writer/Producer (2012). Hava Nagila (The Movie) (NTSC B&W and color, widescreen, closed-captioned). Los Angeles, CA, USA: Katahdin Productions, More Horses Productions. OCLC 859211976. Retrieved 3 September 2015. The song you thought you knew. The story you won't believe.
  4. NPR staff, 2013, "Film Hoists 'Hava Nagila' Up Onto A Chair, In Celebration Of Song And Dance." NPR (online), February 28, 2013, see , accessed 3 September 2015.
  5. Yudelson, Larry. "Who wrote Havah Nagilah?". RadioHazak. Larry Yudelson. Archived from the original on 2008-07-29. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
  6. In an appearance on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs on 28 October 2007, Idelsohn's grandson Joel Joffe referred to his grandfather as the author of "Hava Nagila", but in the programme notes it says "Composer: Bashir Am Israelim", meaning that either this is an alias for Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, to whom Joffe was clearly referring in the programme, or (more plausibly) the programme notes contain a mistranscription of "Shir Am Yisraeli", meaning "Israeli folksong".
  7. Joffe: Abraham Zvi Idelsohn
  8. Belafonte, Harry (1959) Belafonte at Carnegie Hall: The Complete Concert (LP) RCA Victor LOC-6006
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Hava Nagila, What Is It? (Part I)" at YouTube
  10. Leland, John. (2004) Hip: The History, New York, NY, USA: HarperCollins, p. 206.
  11. Four Jacks and a Jill, Jimmy Come Lately Retrieved May 13, 2015
  12. "Set Lists 1968 to 1976". The Highway Star. Retrieved 2012-06-18.
  13. Raphael sings "Hava Nagila" at YouTube
  14. Dalida: Hava nagila 2, at YouTube
  15. Neil Diamond Live In America 1994, at YouTube
  16. "Hava Nagila Twist", on The Hokey Pokey:Organized Dancing (1991)
  17. "Hava Nagila" by Sonata Arctica in a Tokyo concert at YouTube
  18. Dream Theater: vídeo de música Judaica no show em Israel, luew, 19/06/09
  19. Amsterdam Journal; A Dutch Soccer Riddle: Jewish Regalia Without Jews, The New York Times, 28 March 2005.
  20. Hava Nagila! – Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad, 15 October 2013
  21. 'Waar komt de geuzennaam 'Joden' toch vandaan?', Het Parool, 1 February 2014.
  22. Promised Land: A Northern Love Story – Anthony Clavane, 12 February 2014
  23. The Yid Army’s chants turn anti-semitism into kitsch banter, Financial Times, 20 September 2013.
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