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"Am Yisrael Chai" [lower-alpha 1] is a Jewish solidarity anthem and a widely used expression of Jewish peoplehood and an affirmation of the continuity of the Jewish people. The phrase gained popularity during the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, when Jewish songwriter Shlomo Carlebach composed the song for the movement's 1965 solidarity rally in New York City.
The Forward has placed "Am Yisrael Chai" second only to "Hatikvah", the current national anthem of Israel, as "an anthem of the Jewish people".
A version of "Am Yisrael Chai" appeared as early as 1895 in a Zionist songbook. [1] It was set to many different tunes, [1] [2] and printed with sheet music in Popular Jewish Melodies (1927). [3] The slogan was also popular in Zionist prose literature. [4] [5]
Another important reference to "Am Yisrael Chai" was at the Second World Jewish Conference in 1933, summoned to fight Hitler's new Nazi regime through economic boycott. Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise ended the final address by declaring to the crowd:
"We are prepared to defend ourselves against the will of Hitler Germany to destroy. We must defend ourselves because we are a people which lives and wishes to live. My last word that I wish to speak to you is this – our people lives — Am Yisrael chai!" [6]
In the songbook Songs of My People (circa 1938), compiled in Chicago, the song "Am Yisrael Chai" appears. The lyrics are the words "Am Yis-ra-el, am Yis-ra-el chai. [/] Am-cha Yis-ra-el chai," in varying order. [7]
On April 20, 1945, five days after the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated, British Army chaplain Rabbi Leslie Hardman led a Friday evening Shabbat service for a few hundred survivors at the camp. Knowing the service was being recorded by Patrick Gordon Walker of the BBC radio service, a Jewish army chaplain proclaimed "Am Yisrael chai!, the children of Israel still liveth" after the group sang the Zionist anthem Hatikvah at the conclusion of the service. [8] [9] [10]
The front of the stage of a concert in Munich (in 1945/1946) by the St. Ottilien Ex-Concentration Camp Orchestra displayed the words "Am Yisrael chai". [11]
In 1948, American journalist Quentin Reynold noticed that someone had carved "Am Yisrael Chai" into the Arch of Titus—an ancient Roman monument to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in the Jewish War of 66-73 CE; it is suspected that the phrase was carved during World War II. [12]
The phrase gained popular use in 1965, when Jewish songwriter Shlomo Carlebach composed "Am Yisrael Chai" as the solidarity anthem of the Soviet Jewry movement at the request of Jacob Birnbaum, founder of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Carlebach and Birnbaum knew each other, and their respective grandfathers had met at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel. By 1965, Carlebach was already popular for his melodies put to Hebrew prayers, and Birnbaum reached out to him in the hopes of composing a song ahead of a planned major SSSJ rally in front of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations in New York on April 4, 1965. [13]
While in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia, Carlebach wrote and first performed "Am Yisrael Chai" before a group of youth in Prague. On April 2, 1965, Carlebach phoned Birnbaum with news that the song was completed. Carlebach publicly performed the song for the first time at rally on April 4. The song became the centerpiece of the SSSJ's annual solidarity rally between 1972 and 1991. [13] [14]
According to musicologist Tina Frühauf, Carlebach's lyrics evoke a sense of the Jewish nation, Jewish survival, and an affirmation of Jewish identity. [15] Birnbaum interpreted the song's dominant phrase to signify "a rebirth of Jewish life, including music" in the post-Holocaust world. [13]
It is the final song of Soul Doctor , a Broadway musical about Carlebach's life. [15]
The song and its core phrase widely became a defiant expression and affirmation of Jewish continuity, especially during times of war and heightened antisemitism. [16] The song was sung on the second day of the Six Day War and at the end of the Yom Kippur War. [17] In 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inscribed the words "Am Yisrael Chai" in the guestbook of the Wannsee Villa in Berlin. [18] Some tour groups visiting Masada shout "Am Yisrael Chai" to invert the emphasis on martyrdom and resistance at the fort; life is the point, according to Professor Theodore Sasson. [19]
After an Israeli court rendered a guilty verdict for John Demjanjuk in 1986, two songs were sung outside the courthouse: Ani Ma'amin, which was sung in concentration camps, and Am Yisrael Chai, which Professor Glenn Sharfman suggests symbolized that the trial and verdict symbolized both a remembrance of the past and a statement of the future. [20]
It is often used by the Jewish diaspora to express support and solidarity with Israel, such as during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. [17] On October 17, 2023, in the aftermath of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, popular Hasidic Jewish singer Benny Friedman released a song called "Am Yisrael Chai" to capture the spirit of the Jewish people during the war. [21] Israeli singer Eyal Golan released a song called "Am Yisrael Chai" on 19 October, in which he sings about the return of the hostages and the solidarity and resilience of the Israeli people. [22] Jewish a cappella groups Maccabeats, Y-Studs, and Six13 released "Avinu SheBashamayim" as a reaction to the attacks, ending with the words "Am Yisrael Chai." [23]
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield uttered the phrase at an Israel solidarity rally during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. [24]
Hebrew [25] | Transliteration | English |
---|---|---|
עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי (repeat 3x) עוֹד אָבִינוּ חַי (repeat 3x) | Am yisrael chai od avinu chai | The people of Israel live, our Father still lives! |
The song's lyrics are derived from Genesis 45:3, "Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?'" (Hebrew : הַעוֹד אָבִי חַי) [26] Carlebach added the words "Am Yisrael Chai" (the nation of Israel lives) and, for the song's refrain, changed the words "is my father still alive" to "our father is still alive" (Hebrew : עוֹד אָבִינוּ חַי) [27] in a possible reference to the Jewish tradition that "Jacob/Israel did not die." According to musicologist Tina Frühauf, Carlebach changed the reference from Joseph's father to God, "as the father of the children of Israel." [15]
During the Israel-Hamas war, The Forward , a major Jewish news organization, placed "Am Yisrael Chai" second only to Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel, as "an anthem of the Jewish people". [13] Judaic scholar Arnold Eisen has called "Am Yisrael Chai" the "civil religion" of American Jewry. [28]
In 2023, Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, debuted a 50-meter-long mural titled Am Yisrael Chai that covers 4,000 years of Jewish history. [29]
Hatikvah is the national anthem of the State of Israel. Part of 19th-century Jewish poetry, the theme of the Romantic composition reflects the 2,000-year-old desire of the Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel in order to reclaim it as a free and sovereign nation-state. The piece's lyrics are adapted from a work by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Złoczów, Austrian Galicia. Imber wrote the first version of the poem in 1877, when he was hosted by a Jewish scholar in Iași.
Naftali Herz Imber was a Jewish Hebrew-language poet, most notable for writing "Hatikvah", the poem that became the basis for the Israeli national anthem.
Nathan Birnbaum was an Austrian writer and journalist, Jewish thinker and nationalist. His life had three main phases, representing a progression in his thinking: a Zionist phase ; a Jewish cultural autonomy phase, which included the promotion of the Yiddish language; and a religious phase, when he turned to Orthodox Judaism and became staunchly anti-Zionist.
Shlomo Carlebach, known as Reb Shlomo to his followers, was a rabbi, religious teacher, spiritual leader, composer, and singer dubbed "the singing rabbi" during his lifetime.
World Agudath Israel, usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel in 1912. Its base of support was located in Eastern Europe before the Second World War but, due to the revival of the Hasidic movement, it included Orthodox Jews throughout Europe. Prior to World War II and the Holocaust, Agudath Israel operated a number of Jewish educational institutions throughout Europe. After the war, it has continued to operate such institutions in the United States as Agudath Israel of America, and in Israel. Agudath Israel is guided by its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Israel and the USA.
Cultural Zionism is a strain of Zionism that focused on creating a center in historic Palestine with its own secular Jewish culture and national history, including language and historical roots, rather than other Zionist ideas such as Political Zionism. The founder of Cultural Zionism is Asher Ginsberg, better known as Ahad Ha'am. With his secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Eretz Israel/Palestine, he confronted Theodor Herzl. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ha'am strove for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".
Chai or Hai is a symbol that figures prominently in modern Jewish culture; the Hebrew letters of the word are often used as a visual symbol.
Reform Zionism, also known as Progressive Zionism, is the ideology of the Zionist arm of the Reform or Progressive branch of Judaism. The Association of Reform Zionists of America is the American Reform movement's Zionist organization. Their mission “endeavors to make Israel fundamental to the sacred lives and Jewish identity of Reform Jews. As a Zionist organization, the association champions activities that further enhance Israel as a pluralistic, just and democratic Jewish state.” In Israel, Reform Zionism is associated with the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.
Radio Jai is a Jewish radio station broadcasting from Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was founded in 1992 by Miguel Steuermann, who is originally from Santiago, Chile. Jai is the Spanish spelling of Chai.
The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union. The organisation held demonstrations, at various important locations.
Menachem Creditor is an American rabbi, author and musician. He is the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation New York and the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. His work has appeared in the Times of Israel, the Huffington Post, the Jewish Week, the Jewish Daily Forward, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
In Israel, prisoners of Zion were Jews who were imprisoned or deported for Zionist activity in countries where such activity was prohibited. The former Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, and the former chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency, Nathan Sharansky, were both prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union. In 1992 an Israeli law made the status of the prisoner of Zion official, however the status was in use long before.
The common definition of Zionism was principally the endorsement of the Jewish people to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, secondarily the claim that due to a lack of self-determination, this territory must be re-established as a Jewish state. Historically, the establishment of a Jewish state has been understood in the Zionist mainstream as establishing and maintaining a Jewish majority. Zionism was produced by various philosophers representing different approaches concerning the objective and path that Zionism should follow. A "Zionist consensus" commonly refers to an ideological umbrella typically attributed to two main factors: a shared tragic history, and the common threat posed by Israel's neighboring enemies.
David Melech Yisrael is a Jewish song referring to King David.
Pioneers For A Cure - Songs To Fight Cancer was started in 2008 to raise funds in support of organizations pioneering new methods of cancer treatment and research. Pioneers For A Cure is the largest showcase of cancer charities on the web. Called '[A] stellar model of artist-driven grassroots philanthropy' by National Geographic, the non-profit project records public domain songs, reinterpreted by contemporary artists and made available on the organization's website. for downloading for a modest donation. Over 100 songs have been recorded by dozens of artists from around the world including Suzanne Vega, Ben E. King, Tom Chapin, Tom Verlaine, Matt White and David Broza. Proceeds from song downloads are donated to artist-selected cancer charities such as the American Cancer Society, St. Jude Children's Hospital, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Pioneers For A Cure is sponsored by Joodayoh, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization
Yad Ben Zvi, also known as the Ben-Zvi Institute, is a research institute and publishing house named for Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in Jerusalem.
Yom HaAliyah, or Aliyah Day, is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually according to the Jewish calendar on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan to commemorate the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel as written in the Hebrew Bible, which happened on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan. The holiday was also established to acknowledge Aliyah, immigration of Jews to the Jewish state, as a core value of the State of Israel, and honor the ongoing contributions of Olim, Jewish immigrants, to Israeli society. Yom HaAliyah is also observed in Israeli schools on the seventh of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan.
Shmuel Cohen (1870–1940) composed the music for the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah ".
Yagel Oshri is an Israeli singer-songwriter and social media influencer. Oshri gained international prominence in 2023 during the Israel–Hamas war for his song "Getting Out of Depression", which Israeli and Jewish media called the "anthem of the war." The song became popular as a soundtrack for videos on social media of reunions between Israeli soldiers returning from duty and their surprised family members.
The arch of Titus bears an ancient inscription, proclaiming the end of the Jewish nation. Visiting Rome, last year, the American journalist, Quentin Reynolds, noticed another, more recent inscription on the same monument. It was, in all likelihood, a Palestinian soldier serving with the Allies who had carved these three Hebrew words into one of the supporting columns: Am Yisrael chai, 'The People of Israel Lives.' This would have been an apt title for the first third of the present book, a splendid job of reporting on Israel's life-and-death struggle in the spring of 1948.