Naphtali Herz Imber

Naphtali Herz Imber (born 1856, Zloczow, Galicia, Austria-Hungary—died Oct. 8, 1909, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was an itinerant Hebrew poet whose poem “Ha-Tiqva” (“The Hope”), set to music, was the official anthem of the Zionist movement from 1933 and eventually became Israel’s national anthem.

Imber received a traditional Talmudic education, and in 1882 he went to Palestine with Laurence Oliphant, a Christian Zionist who employed him as a secretary. Imber probably wrote “Ha-Tiqva” in 1878, and a Jewish farmer in Palestine set it to the melody of a Moldovan-Romanian folk song in 1882. Imber’s “Ha-Tiqva” and another poem he wrote that became a popular Zionist song, “Mishmar ha-Yarden” (“The Watch on the Jordan”), were first published in his verse collection Barkai (1886; Morning Star).

After Oliphant died in 1888, Imber moved to England, and in 1892 he resettled in the United States, where he spent his later years in poverty.

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