ברכת עם | Birkat 'am | Blessing of a nation (1912)

Artist: Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938)

Lyrics: Haim Nahman Bialik

Tune: Foreign Melody

This poem was written and published in 1894 by Haim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934), who later became the Israeli national poet. The text pays tribute to the Jewish pioneers in Erets Yisrael, and includes references to the Bible and to liturgical poems. Birkat 'am urges the Jewish people to be strong and unite; to contribute, each in his or her own way, to the creation of the new state and nation. The song served as a hymn during the Zionist conferences, and was considered as a possible national anthem. (Eventually, “Ha-Tikva” [The Hope] (song no. 83) was chosen to be the national anthem of the State of Israel.) Idelsohn included five of the eight verses in the poem.

“Birkat 'am” was adapted to the Russian melody "Song for the First of May", which praises Russia's triumph of 1884. In the Table of Contents to Sefer Ha-Shirim, Idelsohn indicated that the melody is "Polish" (a term he used for songs of Yiddish origin), but above the musical notes, he designated it as a "foreign melody".

The melody is arranged for two voices, in a marching tempo, in a minor key.