Krav Maga
Krav maga(Hebrew; contact combat) is an Israeli martial art that was de-
veloped in the 1940s for use by the Israeli military and intelligence services.
The creator of the system was Imi Lichtenfeld, an immigrant to Israel from
Bratislava, Slovak (formerly Czechoslovakia). Today it is the official fight-
ing art of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and has gained popularity world-
wide as an effective and devastating fighting method. It is a fighting art ex-
clusively; sport variants do not exist. Krav maga has earned high marks
from police forces and elite military units worldwide as a practical martial
art that is easy to learn. Although a fairly recently developed martial art,
its growth has been impressive and shows no sign of abating.
Imi Lichtenfeld was born in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire in 1910. The family later moved to Bratislava. His father, Samuel, had
been a circus performer and taught Imi wrestling, physical fitness, and
various martial art techniques he had learned from his years of travels.
Samuel Lichtenfeld was also a chief inspector and self-defense instructor
for the Bratislava police department. Imi developed into an athlete and
won several wrestling, boxing, and gymnastics competitions throughout
his youth.
In the 1930s, the political situation for Jews in Czechoslovakia began
to turn grim. Germany had become a Nazi state characterized by rabid
anti-Semitism as its ideological base. This anti-Semitism exploded onto the
streets of Bratislava. Nazi sympathizers created gangs and political parties
who began to harass and physically assault Jews on the streets. Imi often
found himself in the middle of fights, and because of his background, gave
self-defense lessons to fellow Jews.
Lichtenfeld soon found that there was a vast difference between the
sport combat systems he had studied and actual street fighting. The Nazi
and fascist gang members had no qualms about using knives and rocks as
weapons or attacking the vital points of the human body, none of which
was allowed in sporting events. Fortunately, Lichtenfeld was quick to adapt
his knowledge to the new realities in order to defend himself successfully.
These experiences, however, fixed in his mind the necessity of developing
an actual combat system as opposed to relying for defense on sport fight-
ing constrained by rules.
Imi left Bratislava and immigrated to Palestine (later Israel) in 1942.
Palestine was at that time assigned by the League of Nations as a mandate
to Great Britain. Immigration by Jews to Palestine was severely restricted,
despite the Nazi death camps that were being used to kill European Jews.
In addition, Jewish residents of Palestine were under attacks constantly
from the Arabs in the region. To combat these attacks, the Jewish residents
had formed the Hagana, the forerunner of the IDF. The Hagana’s purpose306 Krav Maga