Composed by Abraham Zevi Idelsohn (1882-1938), a Latvian-born cantor and musicologist who founded the academic study of Jewish music. While teaching at the new Hebrew Conservatory in Jerusalem, Idelsohn took a wordless Hasidic niggun he had transcribed from Sadigura Hasidim (Bukovina, today Ukraine/Romania) and set it to a Hebrew text. He premiered it at a concert celebrating the British liberation of Palestine from Ottoman rule (December 1917 - January 1918). The song spread immediately through the Yishuv and was on its way around the world within a decade.
For years authorship was disputed, Idelsohn's student Moshe Nathanson also claimed credit (he said he made it a class assignment and wrote the words). The historical consensus today: Idelsohn arranged it; Nathanson may have suggested the text.
The text is a free paraphrase of Psalm 118:24:
זֶה הַיּוֹם עָשָׂה יְהוָה, נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ
"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
The Psalm is part of Hallel, the praise psalms recited on holidays and Rosh Chodesh. Idelsohn extracted the two verbs nagila (let us rejoice) and nismecha (let us be glad) and built the whole song on them, plus added uru achim ("awake, brothers") in V3 as a Zionist exhortation to wake up to the new era.
הָבָה (hava), "come / let us / give!" An ancient particle, found throughout Genesis (havah at the Tower of Babel, "come, let us build"). Marks a cohortative, a "let's do this together" mood. The most-repeated word in the song.
נָגִילָה (nagila), "let us rejoice". Cohortative 1st-person plural of the root ג.י.ל (gil) = joy, gladness. Same root as gilui (revelation), joy as a kind of revelation.
וְנִשְׂמְחָה (v'nismecha), "and let us be glad". From ש.מ.ח, the standard root for joy. Simcha (a celebration, a wedding) comes from the same root. Note the grammatical pair: nagila (gil-joy) + nismecha (simchah-joy), two synonymous verbs to double the emphasis.
נְרַנְּנָה (neranenah), "let us sing out / cry out joyfully". From ר.נ.ן in piel (intensive), literally "to cause a ringing sound". Used in Psalms for ecstatic praise. Related to rinah (joyful song), a kind of song that's almost a shout.
עוּרוּ אַחִים (uru achim), "awake, brothers!" The imperative plural of ע.ו.ר (to wake). Achim (brothers) was the standard Zionist address, fellow Jews in the new movement. Direct echo of the wake-up calls in Isaiah and the morning prayer service (uri uri ivshi, "awake, awake, put on strength").
The tune originated as a wordless Hasidic niggun sung at the table of the Sadigurer Rebbe (Avraham Yaakov Friedman, descendant of Ruzhin) in Bukovina, a region now split between Ukraine and Romania. Idelsohn transcribed it during his fieldwork in 1908-1910 (he made the first systematic recordings of Jewish liturgical music across communities). The original niggun has a slower, more meditative quality. When Idelsohn sped it up and added words, it transformed from a Hasidic table-song into a Zionist celebration song. The Hasidim themselves still sing the original niggun without the words.
Hava Nagila became the de facto Jewish anthem outside Israel. Harry Belafonte recorded it in 1959 (introducing it to mainstream American audiences). Bob Dylan mocked it on his 1962 song "Talkin' Hava Negeilah Blues". It plays at football matches in Argentina, at Bollywood weddings (the 2009 song Hava Nagila in Wake Up Sid), at Greek tavernas, in cartoons (the Three Stooges, Hank Azaria), and at every American Jewish wedding since 1960. The 2012 documentary Hava Nagila (The Movie) traces its journey.
Within Israel the song carries a slight stigma, too obvious, too tourist-coded. Most Israeli weddings have moved on to contemporary Hebrew pop. But the moment Hava Nagila starts at a Diaspora simcha, even the most cynical Israeli will join the hora circle.