Hava Nagila
Hava Nagila or Havah Nagilah ( הבה נגילה) is a Hebrew folk song traditionally sung at Jewish celebrations.
Emergence
The melody was originally a wordless Hasidic niggun and was edited and provided with words by the musicologist Abraham Zvi Idelsohn , probably in 1918 on the occasion of the British occupation of Palestine in World War I. The title translates as "Let us be happy". It is a song of celebration and is very popular in Judaism for weddings and bar / bat mitzvah celebrations. In popular culture it is used as a metonym for Judaism. The grammatical form of the first six lines in each case after the introductory hava ( "on", literally. "Give!") A Kohortativ . This grammatical form from Biblical Hebrew is still used in upscale modern Hebrew.
text
| transcription | Hebrew | translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hava nagila | הבה נגילה | Let's be happy | |
| Hava nagila | הבה נגילה | Let's be happy | |
| Hava nagila ve nismechah | הבה נגילה ונשמחה | Let's be happy and cheerful | |
|
(Repeat stanza once)
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| Hava close to the river | הבה נרננה | let us sing | |
| Hava close to the river | הבה נרננה | let us sing | |
| Hava neranenah ve nismechah | הבה נרננה ונשמחה | Let's sing and be happy | |
|
(Repeat stanza once)
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| Uru, uru achim! | ! עורו עורו אחים | Wake up, wake up brothers! | |
| Uru achim b'lev sameach | עורו אחים בלב שמאח | Awake brothers with a happy heart | |
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(Repeat verse four times)
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| Uru achim, uru achim! | ! עורו אחים עורו אחים | Wake up brothers, wake up brothers! | |
| B'lev sameach | בלב שמח | With a happy heart |
Performers
Rika Zaraï , Alma Cogan , Olivera Katarina , Ivan Rebroff , Harry Belafonte , Bob Dylan , Dick Dale , Danny Kaye , Rootwater and numerous other artists achieved a place in the hit lists with the song.
The song I'm the Man by the band Anthrax quotes the melody of the first verse.
Web links
- Report on Lauren Rose's version ( memento of July 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Who wrote Hava Nagila? (English)
- Hava Nagila in the Christian song database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edna Amir Coffin: A reference grammar of modern Hebrew . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-511-81108-1 , pp. 41-42 (English).