The melody for Hatikva is based on “La Mantovana,” a 17th century Italian song. Its earliest known appearance in print was in early 17th-century Italy as “Ballo di Mantova.” This melody gained wide currency in Renaissance Europe, being recorded variously as the Spanish hymn “Virgen de la Cueva” (“Virgin of the Cave”), the Yiddish folk song “Prayer for the Dew,” the Polish folk song “Pod Krakowem,” and as the Ukrainian “Kateryna Kucheryava.” In the Czech Republic this melody in major scale is known as the folk song “Ko?ka leze dírou”; in minor scale, it had been first used by Bed?ich Smetana in his symphonic poem “Má vlast” as “Die Moldau.”
The modern adaptation of the music for Hatikvah was most likely composed by Samuel Cohen in 1888. It is possible that he took the melody from Smetana’s work, or from a Romanian version of the folk song “Carul cu boi” (“Carriage with Oxen”), or from the Hungarian arrangement “Tüzed, Uram Jézus” (“Your Fire, My Lord Jesus”).
Hatikvah is written in a minor key, which is often perceived as mournful in tone and thus rarely used in national anthems. However, as the title (“The Hope”) and the words suggest, the import of the song is uplifting and optimistic in spirit.

Anyone here a have a certain guilty affection for the scene in Casablanca where the Germans come into Rick's and start singing something patriotic which is eventually overwhelmed by Victor Laszlo getting everyone else to sing La Marseillaise? I had a French girlfriend for a couple of years - she hadn't seen it and when we rectified that situation said it was the first time that tune had moved her. (At least, positively.)