Israeli Martial Arts
To understand Israeli martial arts you need to understand the history of Israel and why the art was developed in the first place, and to see why it must continue to evolve. You need to understand the goal of the art.
Israeli martial arts has a history that started in the late 1940s. During this time Jewish people were under attack and started to fight back. The art was developed for “real life” survival, not for sport.
There are many famous people and others who aren’t so famous who contributed to the history of the Israeli martial arts. One of the most famous is Solomon Aruch whose life story was told in the movie “Triumph of the Spirit”. Solomon Aruch had to fight on a daily basis in Nazi concentration camps to be allowed to survive. The Nazis would arrange boxing matches and he would be forced to win or die. Their was Hana Senseh, a young Hungarian, a new immigrant, living in kibbutz ‘Sdoth Yam’ who was recruited to serve as a paratrooper in the British Army. She fought against the Nazis, helping Jewish people in Hungary during world war two. This young brave girl lost her life in this mission. In addition, their was Oli Giveon, the commander of the Revengers Unit that fought the Nazis and was later responsible for hunting down Nazi war criminals. There are legendery fighters alive today such as Meir Har-Tzion, who helped found Paratroop Unit 101, the first Israeli anti-terrorist unit. Of Meir Har-Tzion, Moshe Dayan said: “He was the bravest Jewish warrior since Bar Kochba. These and many others are the people behind Israeli martial arts and CQB training.