My Word: Between ‘hope’ and ‘home’ and national anthems - opinion

It was not so much a matter of losing hope as abandoning it. Embedded in Yossi Beilin’s weekly column in Israel Hayom last week was a disturbing proposition: Change the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” (“the hope”) to Ehud Manor’s song “Habayta” (“home”), the unofficial anthem of the campaign to release the hostages.

I don’t know if Beilin wrote it tongue in cheek or was sticking his tongue out at the paper’s largely Right-leaning readership.

Beilin’s call was this: “‘Home’ – as a new anthem. This week I heard Ehud Manor and Yair Klinger’s song ‘Home’ several times a day, and the tears were exactly like those that come when ‘Hatikvah’ is sung at special events. 

“I told myself that even though we don’t change anthems often, maybe now is the time to make this song, which unites so many Israelis around it, a new anthem instead of Naftali Herz Imber’s somewhat outdated song, whose melody is taken from Bedrich Smetana’s famous work ‘My Homeland.’ 

“The fact that the spectacular performance [of ‘Habayta’] by a thousand musicians two months after the Black Sabbath also included a section from ‘Hatikvah’ adds to the uniqueness of this wonderful song.”

The performance Beilin is referring to is indeed deeply moving. I shared it on social media when it first appeared and recommend watching it. Arranged by Eran Mitelman and Ron Klein, the performance is known as the “Homeland Concert.” A thousand musicians of all ages – amateur and professional – gathered at the impressive Roman-era Caesarea Amphitheater, all united by a common plea to “Bring them home.”

The lyrics include these words:

Homeward, homeward,

It’s time to return,

From the hills and foreign fields

The day is fading and there’s no sign…

Until the dawn breaks,

I pray for you,

Captive in handcuffs of fear

I hear steps.

Homeward, homeward,

Because it’s not yet been given,

All we were promised long ago.

The version by Israeli star Yardena Arazi has filled the airwaves for the last 15 months, particularly in the two weeks since the start of the latest hostage release. 

One radio presenter declared that the song should be played on every program until the last hostage being held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been returned – the live ones to heal and the dead to be buried, granting the families a measure of closure.

As I write these lines, the country – every decent person – is waiting for the expected return on Thursday of IDF observation soldier Agam Berger, separated from her four friends who were brought back last week; Arbel Yehud, a civilian captive who was meant to be released last week; and a male hostage. And three more men on Saturday.

I’m praying for the rest of the hostages, which includes the two young Bibas boys, while preparing for the worst. Israel was attacked by monsters on October 7, 2023. The depths of the evil of those who carried out the mega-atrocity is unfathomable, deeper than the tunnels where they have held their victims in utter darkness and deprivation.

Arazi’s original version of “Habayta” broke into the national consciousness in 1982, early in the First Lebanon War, when Manor’s words were perceived as a call for a unilateral withdrawal of soldiers from “the foreign fields” of Lebanon – a move Beilin very actively supported. The singer updated the song in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, dedicating it to kidnapped soldiers.

Despite its being an undoubted hit, strangely it is not the song that I most associate with the return of soldiers. My family was friendly with someone whose brother was a POW in Syria. When he returned in an exchange in June 1984 after two years in a Damascus prison, the song “Ani Hozer Habayta,” (“I’m coming home, me and my guitar”) – a wildly popular Israeli version of “L’Italiano” – seemed to be played in a nonstop loop.

When I took a course in international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of my BA, renowned legal scholar Prof. Ruth Lapidoth was happy to answer my questions as I tried to help the imprisoned soldier. Something she told me then has stayed with me: When a soldier is captured by a state, there is at least the minimal protection of international law, unlike when someone is captured by a terrorist organization that is not obliged by any laws.

This was apparent, as my family was also friendly with the parents of MIA Zachary Baumel, whose body was finally brought home for burial in 2019, some 37 years after he was abducted by terrorists in the Battle of Sultan Yakoub in Lebanon.

It is even more obvious in the current case when terrorists snatched civilians in pajamas from their homes and revelers from a music rave. The Hamas and PIJ terrorists do not feel bound by even the basic laws of human nature or the laws of Islam.

But back to Oslo Accord architect Beilin and “Habayta.” This is not the first time there have been calls to change the national anthem. In 2007, Arab MK Ahmed Tibi demanded “Hatikvah” be replaced. According to the Milken Archive of Jewish Music, in 1967, after the Six Day War, extreme left-wing MK Uri Avnery introduced a bill to replace it with Naomi Shemer’s “Yerushalayim shel zahav” (“Jerusalem of gold”), although that song also later fell from grace among the Left.

Incidentally, Shemer’s song has roots in a Basque folk song; Klinger first composed the tune of “Habayta” for a French singer; and there is evidence that Smetana based part of his “Moldau” melody on a Sephardi prayer for dew. Powerful music obviously shares similar stirring notes.

“Hatikvah” doesn’t just strike a chord, it pulls at the heartstrings; particularly in a week in which International Holocaust Remembrance Day was commemorated. The Israeli national anthem, among other things, signifies the bond between the Jewish homeland and Diaspora communities.

Anyone who doubted the wisdom of passing the Nation-State law in 2018 should reflect on the fact that there wouldn’t have been a need for it had Israel’s identity not been constantly challenged.

The law that raised so much controversy defines the Land of Israel as “the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the State of Israel was established”; the flag is the blue-and-white Star of David; the symbol is the ancient seven-branched menorah with olive leaves on either side; and the anthem is “Hatikvah.” The law also proclaims a unified Jerusalem as the capital and declares that “the state will be open to Jewish immigration and to the ingathering of the exiles.”

If Israel were not “The Jewish state,” nobody would care what we call ourselves. No one questions France’s right to call itself the French Republic or Iran defining itself as “The Islamic Republic,” for that matter. There’s no international uproar over Britain’s choice to refer to itself as the United Kingdom (despite the aspirations of Scottish, Welsh, and other nationalists).

An unlikely hit

You don’t change a country’s anthem, flag – or borders – on a whim. More important than being in tune with generational preferences, a national anthem reflects the connection between present and past. National pride is nothing to be ashamed of.

There’s another song that has swept up Israelis recently. As my colleague David Brinn has written, “‘Tamid Ohev Oti’ (“always loves me”) by pop Mizrahi singer Sasson Shaulov has captured the minds, hearts, and toe taps of Israelis, transcending political, social, and religious affiliation.

“It was the most unlikely of hits in a most unlikely year,” Brinn noted of the song that topped Israeli radio charts at the end of 2024.

The beat of the refrain “Hashem [God] loves me, and everything will be good, even better,” can induce a trance-like state, somewhere between religious devotion and heavy-metal hypnosis.

If you want to understand who Israelis are – nearly 16 months after the Hamas mega-atrocity and war – watch a clip of this song after you watch “Habayta.” I have seen crowds swept up in its message at weddings and other celebrations, including relatives of a newly war-bereaved family. It is a quintessentially Israeli expression of hope and resilience.

Perhaps it’s fitting to let the national anthem, “Hatikvah,” have the final words:

Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope of two thousand years,

To be a free nation in our land,

The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.