Hava Nagila is an Israeli folk song traditionally sung at Jewish celebrations.
History
Hava Nagila is one of the first modern Israeli folk songs in the Hebrew language. It went on to become a staple of band performers at Jewish weddings and bar/bat mitzvah celebrations. The melody is based on a HassidicNigun. It was composed in 1918, to celebrate the Balfour Declaration and the British victory over the Turks in 1917. It was first performed in a mixed choir concert in Jerusalem. Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, 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, who with the rest of his class was presented by the professor with a 19th-century, slow, melodious, chant 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. The niggun has been attributed to the Sadigurer Chasidim, who lived in what is now Ukraine. This version has been recreated by Daniel Gil. The text was probably refined by Idelsohn. Members of the community began to immigrate to Jerusalem in 1915, and Idelsohn wrote in 1932 that he had been inspired by that melody. The lyrics are based on Psalm 118 of the Hebrew Bible. The first commercial recording of the song was produced in Berlin in 1922.
Idelsohn produced the first commercial recording in 1922, on the Polyphon record label, as part of a series which recorded 39 Hebrew folk songs.
Singer Harry Belafonte is known for his version of the song, which was recorded for his album Belafonte at Carnegie Hall in 1959. He rarely gave a concert without singing it, and stated that the two “stand out” songs from his professional career were “The Banana Boat Song,” and “Hava Nagila”. Belafonte noted and claimed, "Life is not worthwhile without it. Most Jews in America learned that song from me."
Neil Diamond, in addition to having performed Hava Nagila in his 1994 Live In America concert, incorporated it into The Jazz Singer, based on Samson Raphaelson's play, in which he acted out a cantor with popular-music ambitions.
Supporters of the Dutch association football clubAFC 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 team's supporters, and at one point ringtones of "Hava Nagila" could even be downloaded from the club's official website.
Supporters of the Englishfootball club Tottenham Hotspur commonly refer to themselves as Yids and are strongly associated with Jewish symbolism and culture. "Hava Nagila" has been adopted as an anthem of sorts by the club, and was one of the most frequently sung songs at White Hart Lane.
