CLOSE-UP

The most
famous of
Hebrew
songs owes
its
inspiration
to a little
boy who
was just
doing his
homework

A Jewish folklore group performs in Lithuania in 1977.

The Story Behind

.

DAVID HOLZEL

Special to The Jewish _News

erusalem in 1910 was a
dusty mountain town, a
mote on the map of the
dying Thrkish empire. Yet, the
60,000 Jerusalemites formed
a lively patchwork of indi-
genous cultures, both Jewish
and Arab. New arrivals, the
beginning of the Zionist
return to Palestine, added the
sounds and tastes of far-flung
Yemen, Germany and East-
ern Europe.

j

Jerusalem was where dis-
parate Jewish cultures met
and metamorphosed. And
where a musicologist named
A. Z. Idelsohn began a mu-

36

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1991

sic lesson for 12-year-old
boys one day by teaching a
Chasidic niggun he had just
learned — a melody without
words.
The students were having
difficulty learning the tune,
and someone suggested that

could be seen by the other
worshipers.
It might not have been a
surprise, then, that Moshe's
lyrics were judged the best
in the class. But the conse-
quences of this homework
assignment were beyond

the song really did need
words. Professor Idelsohn
challenged the boys to return
the next day, each with his
own set of lyrics.

anything the 12-year-old
could have expected.

One of the professor's
students was a small red-
head named Moshe Nathan-
son. Moshe was already
something of a prodigy, hav-
ing acted as chazzan (cantor)
in Jerusalem since the age of
8, chanting prayers while
standing on a box so he

Moshe Nathanson had
written Hava Nagilah.
It might surprise some
that the ubiquitous song

played at weddings, bar and
bat mitzvahs and other

happy occasions actually
has a story — that it wasn't
always there to be sung and
enjoyed. It is more surpris-
ing that it was written by a
child.
"It's the one Hebrew song

Photo cour tesy o f Sandra Baumwald

NAGILAH

Dancing to "Have
Nagilah" in Athens, Ga.

