Hashiveinu: A Song History

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The words of Hashiveinu come from Lamentations 5:21, the next-to-last verse of that book, in which the people ask God to bring them back and to make their days new, as they were long ago.[1] On Tisha B'Av, when Lamentations is chanted in the synagogue, custom has the congregation return to this verse once the reading is finished, with the reader repeating it after them, so that the book's grim closing line is not the last word.[2] The same verse also closes the passage recited as the Torah scroll is put back into the ark in the traditional Ashkenazi prayer book.[3]

Watercolor of a city wall and gate with a domed building behind, olive trees and figures in the foreground

Richard Principal Leitch, St. Stephen's Gate, Jerusalem, watercolor, c. 1860. Shown for its Jerusalem setting; it has no connection to the round.

The Zemirot Database credits the familiar tune to Meir Ben-Uri, notes that it may be sung as a three-part round, and files it under Tisha B'Av as well as rounds.[4] An article from the University of Würzburg by Theodor Seidl dates the melody to 1964 and describes Ben-Uri (1908–1983), born in Riga and active in Haifa, as an architect, painter, illustrator and composer.[5] Seidl counts it among the religious rounds of modern Israeli folk music that quickly travelled abroad, and he cites its adoption by several youth songbooks published in Zürich, Stuttgart, Cologne and Munich between 1980 and 2018 as evidence of its popularity.[5] He also points out that the round sets the verse in a flowing 6/8 rhythm and repeats each of its three verbs, intensifying the plea.[5]

Judy House includes it as a three-part round in A Collection Of Jewish Music For The Mountain Dulcimer, a book of Jewish songs, prayers, psalms and rounds arranged in DAD tuning, with a page on each song's history and meaning and a pronunciation key for the Hebrew.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Hashiveinu"

Sources

  1. Sefaria: "Lamentations 5:21".
  2. Torat Har Etzion (Yael Ziegler): "Eikha Chapter Five, Part 6: Verse 21".
  3. Sefaria: "Siddur Ashkenaz, Shabbat, Shacharit, Returning Sefer to Aron".
  4. Zemirot Database: "Hashiveinu".
  5. University of Würzburg (Theodor Seidl): "Haschiwenu Adonaj elächa – Kanon für drei Stimmen über Klagelieder 5,21".
  6. Judy House: "A Collection Of Jewish Music For The Mountain Dulcimer".
  7. Image: Richard Principal Leitch, St. Stephen's Gate, Jerusalem, watercolor, c. 1860. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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