The history of the most famous Israeli song, hava nagila. The history of the most famous Israeli song hava nagila What does hava nagila mean

Chava Nagila - Jewish song of joy
Few people know the Israeli anthem, but almost everyone knows the Jewish song “Hava Nagila,” which has become truly popular.
Based on materials from Igor Bely and Ze'ev Geisel (2005):
At the beginning of the 20th century, there lived and lived in Jerusalem the musician Abraham Zvi Idelson (1882 - 1938). And he loved to record the folklore of wandering Jewish musicians - klezmers. The First World War ended, following its results, Turkey left Palestine to the British, the Balfour Declaration (1917) was created and promulgated: “His Majesty’s Government is considering with approval the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will make every effort to promote the achievement of this goal ". And in 1918, British troops entered Jerusalem. On this occasion, an unprecedented festive concert was being prepared in the holy city. Idelson prepared this concert - he led the choir, compiled the program, and rehearsed until late. And at some point he was faced with a problem - that there was no good ending for this concert. We need a song, something new and bright, so that everyone remembers it. Idelson began to delve into his folklore pre-war papers - and dug up this nameless Hasidic chant, processed it and sketched out words suitable for the moment. “Hava Nagila” meant “Let us rejoice.” The concert turned out to be wonderful, the final song became a hit not just for a long time, but throughout the entire history of Jewish music to this day.
So, in Hebrew the lyrics of the song are written as follows:

It sounds something like this in Latin transcription:

Hava nagila, hava nagila
Hava nagila venis"mecha

Hava neranena, hava neranena
Hava neranena venis"mecha

Uru, uru achim
Uru achim belev same"ach

Listen to the original song from Israel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6eH3n4lUIM
And now my equirhythmic translation into Russian:

Hava Nagila - Hava Nagila,

Rejoice people, rejoice people.
Rejoice, people, a dream has come true.

Sing songs, my people, sing songs, my people,
Sing songs, my people, a dream has come true.

My brother, my brother, get up

Brother, get up, fun awaits us.
Brother, get up, fun awaits us.
Brother, get up, fun awaits us.
My brother, get up, fun awaits us.
__________________

Reviews

Thank you very much for the translation provided!
These seem to be simple words that are repeated. but the power of music makes it a leading hymn. It contains passion and joy, light and suffering. Everything seems to be mixed together. Well, just like in life. I love this song very much. If I hear it at events, my feet always dance on their own. Even if I’m walking around the city and I hear it, I can’t help myself....
Thanks again.

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Wiki: “Hava Nagila” is a Jewish song written in 1918 by folklore collector Abraham Zvi Idelson to an old Hasidic melody. The author of the music is unknown, but it is believed that it was composed by an unknown klezmer player from Eastern Europe no earlier than the mid-19th century. The title literally means "Let us rejoice." This song is performed at holidays and is especially popular among Jews. The popularity of the song is such that many consider it a folk song. In popular culture, the tune is used as a metonym for Judaism.

Some claim that the song was composed to commemorate the entry of British troops into Jerusalem in 1917, which caused joy among the Jews (as some considered it a harbinger of the coming of the Messiah and return to the Holy Land). In 1918, this song, performed by three famous cantors, was recorded on a gramophone. It is also claimed that this was the first recording of a Hebrew song in Israel. Over the course of the century, the rhythm changed several times, and the modern version is somewhat different from the original.

Hebrew
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה ונשמחה
(repeat verse twice)
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה ונשמחה
(repeat verse twice)
!עורו, עורו אחים
עורו אחים בלב שמח
(repeat four times)
!עורו אחים, עורו אחים
בלב שמח

Translation
Let's rejoice
Let's rejoice
(repeat verse twice)
Let's sing
Let's sing
Let's sing and let's rejoice
(repeat verse twice)

Awake, awaken, brothers!
(repeat four times)
Wake up, brothers, wake up, brothers!
With a joyful heart

Transcription
hava nagila
hava nagila
hava nagila venismekha
(repeat verse twice)
hava neranena
hava neranena
hava neranena venismekha
(repeat verse twice)
Hurray, hurray achim!
Uru achim belev samekh
(repeat four times)
Uru achim, uru achim!
Belev Samech

In English:

Bells are ringing
Dance everyone dance
Come to the valley
Run through the clover
Harvest is over
Dance everyone dance

Dance where the corn was high
Under a golden sky
Dance where the wine was born
Dance everyone dance

Whirl and turn about
Lift up your arms and shout
Join hands, skip along
Dance everyone dance

Spread your wings like the swallow
Fly away, greet the day
Vicki: "Hava Nagila" - Jewish song written in 1918, a collector of folklore Abraham Zvi Idelson of the old Hasidic melody. Composer unknown, but it is believed that it was written by an unknown Eastern European klezmer not before the middle of the XIX century. The name literally means "Let us rejoice." This song is on holidays and is particularly popular among Jews. The song's popularity is that many consider it to be popular. In pop culture, the melody used as a metonym of Judaism.

Some argue that the song was composed to mark visit British troops in Jerusalem in 1917, which rose due to the joy of the Jews (as some considered it a harbinger of the coming Messiah and the return to the Holy Land). In 1918, this song is performed by three famous cantors was recorded on gramophone. It is also discussed that it was the first recording of the song in Hebrew in Israel. For a century the rhythm changed several times, and the modern version is somewhat different from the original.

Hebrew
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה ונשמחה
(repeat verse twice)
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה ונשמחה
(repeat verse twice)
! עורו, עורו אחים
עורו אחים בלב שמח
(repeat four times)
! עורו אחים, עורו אחים
בלב שמח

translation
Let us rejoice
Let us rejoice
(repeat verse twice)
Let us sing
Let us sing
Let us rejoice and sing will
(repeat verse twice)
Wake up, wake up, brothers!
Wake up, wake up, brothers!
(repeat four times)
Awake, brethren, awake, brothers!
With a joyful heart

transcription
hava Nagila
hava Nagila
Hava Nagila venismeha
(repeat verse twice)
hava neranena
hava neranena
hava neranena venismeha
(repeat verse twice)
Uru Uru achim!
Uru achim belev Samech
(repeat four times)
Uru achim, uru achim!
Belev Samech

In English:
Over the valley voices are singing
Bells are ringing
Dance everyone dance
Come to the valley
Run through the clover
Harvest is over
Dance everyone dance

Dance where the corn was high
Under a golden sky
Dance where the wine was born
Dance everyone dance

Whirl and turn about
Lift up your arms and shout
Join hands, skip along
Dance everyone dance

Turn left, turn right, hold tight
Lift your feet your heart will follow
Lift your voice till they holler
Spread your wings like the swallow
Spread your wings like the swallow
Fly away, greet the day
Dance, dance everybody dance

For many years now, I have been constantly asked about what “hava nagila” is. What is the meaning of it, who wrote it, etc. I constantly have to dispel the most fantastic legends around this song - and the fact that the Maccabees sang it, hitting their enemies on the heads; and the fact that this is a special wedding drinking song, to which at least three glasses of alcohol are supposed to be drunk in a row according to ancient Jewish tradition...
It’s time to finally make one universal entry with answers - to which we can send the multitudes of those who are mistaken.

Under pressure from the enlightened public - update: original text and mp3 collection

So in Hebrew it is written like this:

הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה ונשמחה

הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה ונשמחה

עורו אחים
עורו אחים בלב שמח

Transcribed it sounds something like this:

Hava nagila, hava nagila
Hava nagila venis"mecha

Hava neranena, hava neranena
Hava neranena venis"mecha

Uru, uru achim
Uru achim belev same"ach

Now as for listening to the eyeballs.

27. opera singer, known for his wide repertoire across all times, genres and peoples. Havanagila is on his Blue Disc, where, among other things, there are etudes by Chopin and Ave Maria. 3.3M

Anatoly Pinsky recently found a rarity - a version of the havanagil in Yiddish. The meaning there is not very different from the original:

Brider, lomir zikh freyen
lomir zikh freyen
Oy, lomir lustik zayn!

Ineynem freylekh zayn,
Tzuzamen lustik zayn!
Briderlekh, idelekh
Freylekh zol zayn!

Zingt, tanzt, freyt zikh ale,
S"iz bay undz a groyse simkhe
S"iz bay undz a groyser yomtev,
Likhtik iz oyf der neshome
Az derlebt shoyn di nekhome,
Briderlekh, zingt,
Briderlekh, tanzt,
A simkhe iz bay undz haynt!

Update from 05/11/09
I do not post more and more new variants of havanagila that readers send me. If you are interested, you can search through the comments and find them all there.
But what’s really interesting is this slideshow with illustrative material for this article:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26577116@N04/sets/72157605304880455/show/

Update from 05/27/09
Appeal to readers who are strongly interested in the topic.
I will be glad if any of you have the strength and desire to collect all the links to the variants of Chava Nagila scattered in the comments. Then it will be possible to make a full update of the post.

Update from 01/13/12
So no one had time to collect links from the comments. It's a pity.
Now I came across this option. Somewhat startling.

For many years now, I have been constantly asked about what “hava nagila” is. What is the meaning of it, who wrote it, etc. I constantly have to dispel the most fantastic legends around this song - and the fact that the Maccabees sang it, hitting their enemies on the heads; and the fact that this is a special wedding drinking song, to which at least three glasses of alcohol are supposed to be drunk in a row according to ancient Jewish tradition...

It’s time to finally make one universal entry with answers - to which we can send the multitudes of those who are mistaken.

There lived such a man Abraham Zvi Idelson at the beginning of the 20th century in Latvia. He was a young cantor and sang in the synagogue. Then something hit him in the head, and he went to wander the world, collect and record Jewish folklore (especially since the Austrian Academy of Sciences helped him a lot in this), wandered around Europe, the Middle East, climbed all the way to South Africa, eventually settled naturally in Jerusalem.

There he came across special Hasidim who called themselves Sadigura - named after the town of Sadigura in Ukraine, from where they came to the Holy Land. Idelson diligently recorded their folklore - mostly these were melodies without words, as is often the case among Hasidim.

It was there that he came across this melody in 1915. It is possible that the Hasidim themselves wrote it - without knowing musical notation, they were collectors, curators, and writers. But now the accepted theory is that this melody was created by an unknown klezmer (wandering Jewish musician) somewhere in Eastern Europe no earlier than the middle of the 19th century. In unimaginable ways, the melody reached the Hasidim, and they gladly picked it up, because they highly valued such things.

I must say that this was not yet quite the melody that we know now. She had a slightly different rhythm, smoother and slower. More likely, even somewhat meditative (Hasidim, they are like that, they love everything meditative :)

Then the First World War broke out. Idelson collected equipment and went to war as part of the Turkish army - for it was Türkiye that owned the Holy Land at that time - he led the regimental orchestra. Three years later, the war ended, Idelson returned home to Jerusalem, where everything changed in a pleasant way. The Turks left Palestine to the British, the Balfour Declaration was created and promulgated - on the right of the Yishuv (Jewish settlement) to self-determination. On these occasions, an unprecedented festive concert was being prepared in Jerusalem - both in honor of the end of the war, and in honor of such glorious Jewish inventions. Idelson, as the master of notes, tinkered with this concert to the fullest - he led the choir, compiled the program, rehearsed until late. And at some point he was faced with a problem - that there was no good ending for this concert. You need a song, something new and bright, so that you remember it.

Idelson began to delve into his folklore pre-war papers - and dug up this nameless Hasidic chant. He was terribly happy and sat down to scribble edits right into the drafts.

First of all, he divided the motif into four parts. I wrote an arrangement for a choir, for an orchestra... Then I scratched the back of my head for a while and quickly jotted down the words that came to mind. So that it is unpretentious, fun and tasty. The result is the following:

Let's rejoice
Let's rejoice and be glad!
Let's sing!
Let's sing and have fun!
Wake up, brothers!
Wake up, brothers, with joy in your hearts!

All. These words never changed again. It happened in 1918 in Jerusalem.
The concert turned out to be wonderful, the final song became a hit not just for a long time, but for the entire further history of Jewish music to this day :)

The melody “Hava Nagila” acquired its familiar sound somewhere in the 30s of the 20th century - thanks to a wave of Jewish immigrants from Romania who grew up on the culture of fiery Romanian dances. The song took on a syncopated dance rhythm and became faster. A little later, a kind of rhythmic consensus emerged - “Hava Nagila” begins slowly, with respect for traditions, and then accelerates into wild dancing.

Interesting fact. Soon after Idelson died in 1938, the author of “Hava Nagila” was unexpectedly “found” - a certain Moshe Natanzon, who claimed that it was he who wrote the most famous Jewish song. The piquancy of the situation was further aggravated by the fact that Natanzon was Idelson’s student in the choir during the events described in 1918. At least, according to Natanzon's version, Idelson gave the task to his students to write words for this tune - and the best one written (it is clear whose) he chose as the words for that concert final song. In Israel they somehow didn’t really believe him, but he somehow convinced the Americans - and soon after his statement he left there for permanent residence as a promising singer of folk songs.

Under pressure from the enlightened public - update: original text and mp3 collection
So in Hebrew it is written like this:

הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה
הבה נגילה ונשמחה
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה
הבה נרננה ונשמחה
עורו אחים
עורו אחים בלב שמח

Transcribed it sounds something like this:

Hava nagila, hava nagila
Hava nagila venis"mecha
Hava neranena, hava neranena
Hava neranena venis"mecha
Uru, uru achim
Uru achim belev same"ach