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‘If you have ever been to a Jewish wedding,” New York Times science writer Natalie Angier wrote two weeks ago, “you know that sooner or later the ominous notes of ‘Hava Nagila’ will sound, and you will be expected to dance the hora. And if you don’t really know how to dance the hora, you will nevertheless be compelled to join hands with others, stumble around in a circle, give little kicks, and pretend to enjoy yourself, all the while wondering if there’s a word in Yiddish that means ‘she who stares pathetically at the feet of others because she is still trying to figure out how to dance the hora.’” Horn-korn zayn, “to be topsy-turvy” (the horn of which has no etymological connection, as far as I know, to the hora), is perhaps the Yiddish term that Ms. Angier is looking for. But where, her article made me wonder, does the word “hora” itself come from? Certainly not from Yiddish, and certainly not from Hebrew, either. After all, the hora was not a Jewish dance at all until it traveled in the early 20th century to Palestine from Romania, where Zionist pioneers, or halutzim, adopted it. |
