Hava Nagila

"Hava Nagila" (, Hāvā Nāgīlā, "Let us rejoice") is a Jewish folk song. It is traditionally sung at celebrations, such as weddings. Written in 1918, it quickly spread through the Jewish diaspora. History "Hava Nagila" is one of the first modern Jewish folk songs in the Hebrew language. It went on to become a staple of band performers at Jewish weddings and bar/bat(b'nei) mitzvah celebrations. The melody is based on a Hassidic Nigun. It was composed in 1918 to celebrate the Balfour Declaration and the British victory over the Ottomans in 1917. It was first performed in a mixed choir concert in Jerusalem. Abraham Zevi Idelsohn (1882–1938), a professor at Hebrew University, began cataloging all known Jewish music and teaching classes in musical composition; one of his students was a promising cantorial student, Moshe Nathanson, who with the rest of his class was presented by the professor with a 19th-century, slow, melodious, chant (niggun or nigun) and assigned to add rhythm and words to fashion a modern Hebrew song. There are competing claims regarding "Hava Nagila"'s composer, with both Idelsohn and Nathanson being suggested.