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What is the English translation of this Hebrew song?
Kolod balevou p'nimoh ne fesh yehudi homi yoh, ul faa semisroch kodimoh ain lezivon zofiyoh.
Od lo oudoh tikvoh senu hatikvoh ha no shonoh lo shuv leerez a vose nu lo ir bo do vid cho noh.
(I had a little crisis the last time around and was unable to choose a best answer in a timely way but I think everything's settled now. Thanks retrospectively anyway and prospectively, hopefully.)
I have only one verse of this song in a peculiar transliteration, in an old songbook. Because the real Hebrew isn't shown, I haven't been able to find the words in my Hebrew dictionary. Thanks so much for the website!
3 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Like the other answerers said, that is the first verse of ha-Tikvah in a quaint, old Ashkenazic transliteration scheme. However, what you wrote is not the version of ha-Tikvah which became the Israeli national anthem. That's the first verse of the original poem by Naphtali Herz Imber. Translated:
So long as deep within the heart
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And directed toward the east,
An eye gazes to Zion:
Our hope will not yet have perished --
That ancient hope
To return to the land of our forefathers,
To the city where David encamped.
The original poem goes on to describe the different areas of Israel, reminding Jews in the diaspora about their homeland as a sort of rallying call: "Only with the very last Jew / Will our hope be fulfilled!" By describing Israel, Imber's goal was to awaken Zionistic passion in his readers.
After they got to the land, however, the poem took on a different meaning: we are here, and our hope has been fulfilled. There no longer needed to remind themselves what the land was like; rather, they now needed to remind themselves of the faithful two-thousand years of yearning. That exilic hope had come to fruition. So they changed the words to:
Our hope will not have perished --
That two millennia-old hope
To be a free people in our own land,
The Land of Zion and Jerusalem.
It's a powerful modification, isn't it?
By the way, the Hebrew of the original first verse is:
כל עוד בלבב פנימה
נפש יהודי הומיה
ולפאתי מזרח קדימה
עין לציון צופיה
עוד לא אבדה תקותנו
התקוה הנושנה
לשוב לארץ אבותינו
לעיר בה דוד חנה
Source(s): I have a degree in Jewish Studies from Oxford. - mary_the_teacherLv 41 decade ago
From where have you copied this text? Are you sure of so many "o"? Many americans pronounce the "a" as an "o", I think. Try to get the transliteration in hebrew.
If you are looking for the lyrics of the israeli national anthem, here is, both in hebrew and in english:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatikvah
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Yes, that's "Ha Tikva" (The hope), the national liric of Israel. But as the 1st contributor said, why so many "o" instaid of "A"? Is it an English speaking transcription habit?
