Documentary shows staying power of Jewish song ‘Hava Nagila’

Well-researched and breezily told, “Hava Nagila (The Movie)” is nonetheless a rather conventional documentary with a head-spinning number of talking-head academics and historians exploring the roots of the Hebrew folk song that is a staple of Jewish wedding ceremonies and bar mitzvahs.

So what’s it doing in the prestigious opening night slot of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, and how did it score similar honors at the San Francisco, Miami, Palm Beach and Virginia Jewish film festivals?

It’s all about the song, which has a backstory that is as remarkable as its staying power and stunning international reach. The point of all these film festivals is to build bridges between Jews and non-Jews by sharing the faith’s culture, and “Hava Nagila” is as Jewish as matzo ball soup.

In the film’s first half, director Roberta Grossman traces the melody to a Ukrainian region that was once home to 5 million Jews and where the song was a wordless Hasidic prayer. The film also visits Jerusalem, where, in the early 20th century, lyrics were added. Though who wrote them is a subject of dispute among the fiercely proud descendants of two songwriters, the lyrics were meant to make a positive statement about Jewish life.

The beginning of the song translates: “Hava nagila, hava nagila” (“Let us rejoice, let us rejoice”)/ “Hava nagila ve-nismeha” (“Let us rejoice and be glad”)/ “Hava neranena, hava neranena” (“Let us sing, let us sing”).

Though the history lesson is compelling, “Hava Nagila (The Movie)” finds its groove in its second half, when Grossman interviews some of the interpreters who helped make the song an international sensation: Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell — respectively African-American and Italian-American artists and a country singer who recorded the tune as instrumental for the B-side of his theme song from “True Grit.”

The song also has been recorded by artists as diverse as surf guitar master Dick Dale, Cuban-born salsa singer Celia Cruz and even Bob Dylan, who comically introduces it in a tape unearthed in the film as “a foreign song I learned in Utah.”

Actress Rusty Schwimmer’s wry narration sets the perfect tone for the 73-minute feature that will plant “Hava Nagila” in the minds of anyone who watches it for weeks — make that months — to come.