Israeli dance has so many different influences, and one of them is Chasidic music and dance. According to the Chabad website, the Chasidic dance expresses joy and excitement but is also a core part of Torah life;

It is said that there is a connection between your spiritual level and your "leg work" - the ones who "owned" the Chasidic dance floor were the elder, more knowledgeable rabbis.

The physical challenge of dance gets the body used to working hard to fulfill a Mitzva and to take joy in doing so. 

Jumping while dancing signifies disconnecting from physical aspects and connecting to a higher spiritual ground, much like your feet leaving the ground.

This is part of a painting by Alex Levin, which can be found here. 

Mayim means water in Hebrew, and it is also the name of a basic step in Israeli Folk Dance, named after a nostalgic dance "Mayim Mayim ".

This is probably the most famous Israeli Folk dance, but there is a huge controversy behind it - who is the creator of the renowned dance? 

One source claims this dance was created in 1944 at a dance festival in Kiryat Anavim (Jerusalem) and became a popular dance.

Another traces it back to Kibbutz Degania Aleph, as part of a casual Friday night dancing.

However, the most common story is the Water Festival in Kibbutz Na'an in 1937, celebrating the striking of a new water well after 7 years of dryness (in the picture)

So who should get the credit for creating the dance? 

They say that great folk dance is one that becomes so popular, that it now belongs to the people, not to the original creator, and seems as if this is what happened here. 

In any way, one (original?) creator of the dance, Elza Doblun, was documented explaining why she created it the way she did: 

"My dance started with a cross-step, cross behind to the left - I felt that it mimics the motion of waves. In the second part, going in the circle - I wanted to express the eruption of water from the ground. In the last part, there were fast steps, but not jumps. I wanted simple, more interesting steps than the simple Hora, but still easy to perform by non-dancers. I wanted them to dance in 3-4 circles, one inside the other. "

In 1924 the first-ever Israeli Folk dance was created. It was a solo choreographed by Baruch Agadadi, who performed holding a shepherd's staff.

In the 30s and 40s’ of the previous century, the inspiration for creating new dances came from Jewish pioneers arriving from Eastern Europe. 

The costumes used in the dance shows were the ones they brought from their countries -  embroidery blouses and long wide skirts. 

Alas, the new dance style required improvements to these costumes - they were uncomfortable to dance in, and the pioneers strived to create something new.

The local Arab shepherds offered great insight into what fabrics to be used in the Middle Eastern climate.

Another inspirational source was the Torah, and white dresses were decorated with words from the bible. Another outfit resembled the vest of the 12 Choshen stones worn by Aharon the Cohen.

The Yemenite Jewish community was perceived as an authentic remnant of ancient times and was exactly what Zionism needed. The Israeli Folk Dance embraced the Yemenite step, as well as the traditional embroidery in the front of the blouse, and silver and gold threads which were commonly used in Yemenite clothing. 

Inspiration came to creative minds working in an economic uncertainty, in the country’s early days. One story tells how costumes were sewn from old nightgowns collected from the Kibbutz’s grandmothers.

When there was a budget to make dresses for the dancers, they were only allowed to make one model, so they designed a costume that would fit many different occasions, and dresses based on this model are being used to this day in Ramat Yochanan.

In 1944, a set of costumes was created from leftover fabric owned by the Kibbutz, which was originally bought to make mosquito nets.

Changes were made to emphasize the movement of the dance, with the use of flowing fabrics, and different cuts, like the bat sleeves.

The “Greek knot” on the forearm was added to the sleeve to hold the fabric in place without covering the hand, while still looking festive.

The ¾ sleeve provided coverage when the arms were down and fell backward when the arms were raised, revealing the full length of the movement.

As an ideology and a creative decision, the dances were performed barefoot - to show the connection to the land. However, when the Israeli Dance group performed in Denmark, a Danish Holocaust survivor offered to pay for shoes for the entire group, which she perceived to be poor.

There was an attempt to create a uniform outfit for Israeli Dance, but none of the suggested costumes worked. Instead, costumes were designed to fit a certain dance theme.

Chasidic dances were performed with costumes that resembled the authentic Chasidic outfit, On harvest dances there would be wheat and barley embroidery on the costumes, and for Wine celebrations, they would use dark red and purple fabrics with vine decorative embroidery.

The only question remains - with all this incredible history, how did the average Israeli dancer still prefer jeans and a T-shirt?

Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer, songwriter, and actress, commonly known in the Western world as "the Madonna of the East", or "the Israeli Madonna". Her voice has been described as a "tender" mezzo-soprano.

Of Yemenite-Jewish descent, Haza's music is known as a mixture of traditional Middle Eastern and commercial singing styles, fusing elements of Eastern and Western instrumentation, orchestration, and dance-beat, as well as lyrics from Mizrahi and Jewish folk tales and poetry. By the late 1980s, Haza was an internationally successful artist, achieving large success in Europe and the Americas and appearing regularly on MTV.

During her singing career, she earned many platinum and gold discs and her music proved highly popular in the club scene. By the 1990s, at the peak of her career, she regularly featured in movie soundtracks, such as that of Dick Tracy (1990) and famously in The Prince of Egypt (1998), and her vocals were popularly sampled in hip hop. Her death in 2000 from an AIDS-related illness shocked the Israeli public and was the subject of much controversy in Israel.

In Israel, Haza was a highly influential cultural figure, referred to as one of the country's biggest cultural icons who helped to popularize Mizrahi culture.

Then, Prime Minister Ehud Barak praised her work as a cultural emissary, commenting that she also represented the Israeli success story: "Ofra emerged from the Hatikvah slums to reach the peak of Israeli culture. She has left a mark on us all."