The Historical Roots of Krav Maga in Europe and Israel

Avrahom Joseph is a Lakewood, New Jersey, resident who maintains a successful business and emphasizes long-term client relations. A martial arts enthusiast, Avrahom Joseph enjoys practicing tai chi, tae kwon do, and krav maga in his free time. A hybrid style of fighting, krav maga was developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, who lived from 1910 to 1998. Residing in what is now the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, during the 1930s, he employed wrestling, boxing, and street fighting techniques as a way of defending the Jewish quarter against daily threats from fascist groups.

Mr. Lichtenfeld escaped from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1942 and found refuge in what would later become Israel. He set about instructing the nascent country’s earliest fighting units in techniques of close-quarters combat. After Israeli independence, Mr. Lichtenfeld accepted responsibilities with the Israel Defense Forces as chief physical training instructor. Krav maga, which has the meaning, “contact combat” in Hebrew, was finally formalized as a discipline. Today, krav maga is practiced by thousands worldwide, and is valued for its brutally effective approach to physical combat.