Dozens Gather at Beth Shalom to Break World Record

As voices around the world gathered in central locations, precisely at 10:50 p.m. Tel Aviv time on the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel, fifty four individuals gathered at Temple Beth Shalom in Palm Coast to sing the Jewish State’s national anthem, Hatikva, The Hope! The event was photographed, the participants signing in and pictures, sign-in sheets and an affidavit sworn out by Rabbi Merrill Shapiro attesting to the local event were sent to Israel as part of an attempt to establish the Guinness Book of World Records effort for the greatest number of people singing a national anthem all at one time. The Flagler County Jewish Community mustered 54 people to join the effort as Israel celebrates the passage of 60 years since the State was declared in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948.
Hatikva (The hope) is the ultimate expression of Jewish longing for freedom in Zion and Jerusalem, the land of our forefathers.Throughout history, Jews everywhere have sung Hatikva in times of both joy and hardship. Judaism is not just a religion; it is a comradeship of a people. There is no other religion in the world with a unifying song like Hatikva. The Live Hatikva project, as the effort was called, aimed to introduced Israel's national anthem to Jews all over the world, to convey its contents and significance, and to encourage people to sing.

On the eve of Israel's 60th Independence Day, Jewish communities around the world world united in a "first of its kind" event. A Jewish solidarity act to strengthen a sense of belonging.
Hatikvah (Hebrew: הַתִּקְוָה‎, The Hope; Arabic: هاتكفا‎), sometimes styled HaTikva(h), is the Israeli national anthem. The anthem was written by Naftali Herz Imber, a secular Galician Jew, who moved to Palestine in the early 1880s. The anthem's underlying message is about "hope," the wish of the Zionists that they would someday attain national independence in the Land of Israel. It is one of the very few national anthems set in a minor key.
It is the Song of the Jewish People and everyone that is of the religion when singing should have their head high at sing with their hearts. In rememberance of all the people that have fought to fight for the Israeli nation and that have lost their lives
The text of Hatikvah was written by the Galician-Jewish poet Naftali Herz Imber in Zolochiv (Ukraine) in 1878 as a nine-stanza poem named Tikvatenu (“Our Hope”). It was supposed to be an expression of his thoughts and feelings following the construction of one of the first Jewish settlements in Israel, Petah Tikva. Published in Imber's first book, Barkai (Hebrew: ברקאי‎, English: "morning star") the poem was subsequently adopted as the anthem of Hovevei Zion and later of the Zionist Movement at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. The melody (of folk origin) was arranged by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldavia. The text was later revised by the settlers of Rishon LeZion, subsequently undergoing a number of other changes.
When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, HaTikvah was unofficially proclaimed the national anthem. It did not become the official anthem until November 2004, when it was sanctioned by the Knesset in an amendment to the “Flag and Coat-of-Arms Law” (now called “The Flag, Coat-of-Arms, and National Anthem Law”).
In its modern rendering, the text of the anthem includes only the first stanza and refrain of the original poem. The most significant element in the additional stanzas (in addition to the hope of returning to Zion, a hope being seen as fulfilled) is the establishment of a sovereign and free nation in Eretz Yisrael. The melody for Hatikvah is based on “La Mantovana”, a 16th century Italian song. Its earliest known appearance in print was in early 17th-century Italy as “Ballo di Mantova.” This melody gained wide currency in Renaissance Europe, being recorded variously as the Spanish hymn “Virgen de la Cueva” (“Virgin of the Cave”); the Sephardi melody for the Hallel prayer; the Yiddish folk song “ the Prayer for the Dew,” the Polish folk song “Pod Krakowem,” a Swedish folksong Ack, Värmeland; and as the Ukrainian “Kateryna Kucheryava.”. This melody had been famously used by Czech Bedřich Smetana in his symphonic poem celebrating Bohemia, "Má vlast", as "Vltava" (Die Moldau)
The modern adaptation of the music for Hatikvah is assumed to be composed by Samuel Cohen in 1888. He himself recalled many years later that he had adapted the melody from a Romanian folk-song, possibly “Carul cu boi” (“Carriage with Oxen”) which shares many structural elements with Hatikvah.
Hatikvah is written in a minor key, which is often perceived as mournful in tone and thus rarely used in national anthems. However, as the title (“The Hope”) and the words suggest, the import of the song is uplifting and optimistic in spirit. Below is the current text (first stanza and the amended refrain of the original nine-stanza poem) in Hebrew, along with a transliteration and translation.
Kol od baleivav p'nimah
Nefesh y'hudi homiyah
Ulfa'atei mizrach kadimah
Ayin l'tziyon tzofiyah
As long as in the heart, within,
A soul of a Jew is yearning,
And to the edges of the East, forward,
An eye gazes towards Zion,
Od lo avdah tikvateinu
Hatikvah bat sh'not alpayim
Lihyot am chofshi b'artzeinu
Eretz tziyon viyrushalayim Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.


Some people compare the first line of the refrain, “Our hope is not yet lost” to the opening of the Polish national anthem, Poland is not yet Lost (Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła) or to the Ukrainian national anthem Ukraine has not yet Perished (Ще не вмерла Україна, Šče ne vmerla Ukraïna). However, this line is considered to be a Biblical allusion to Ezekiel’s “Vision of the Dried Bones” (Ezekiel 37: “...Behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost”), describing the despair of the Jewish people in exile, and God’s promise to redeem them and lead them back to the Land of Israel.There is however no proof for this connection, and the Polish allusion is obviously much more convincing given Imber's background.
Hatikvah is relatively short; indeed it is a single complex sentence, consisting of two clauses. The subordinate clause posits the condition (“As long as...A soul still yearns...And...An eye still watches...”), while the independent clause specifies the outcome (“Our hope has not yet been lost...To be a free nation in our own homeland”).