History of Israeli Martial Arts

Krav Maga is a generic Hebrew term meaning Contact Combat or Close Quarter Combat. Krav Maga is identified by many people as the unarmed combat system of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the success of the various styles of Krav Maga has been partly due to this assocuation.

At the time of writing there is some controversy over how Krav Maga developed and just what is actually taught in the IDF and by whom. We don’t wish to become embroled in that nor do we make any comment on Middle East politics. The following gives a very brief summary of the history and the major organisations that currently use the Krav Maga name and/or teach in Israel.

Imi Lichtenfeld developed his close quarter combat system in the IDF and also expanded Krav Maga by teaching it to Israeli citizens with the help of his top instructor Eli Avikazar. Imi belonged to the Israel Krav Maga Association (IKMA) which is now headed by Haim Gidon and based in Netanya. The International Krav Maga Federation (IKMF), an offshoot of the IKMA headed by Eyal Yanilov, is also based in Netanya.

Darren Levine did a course in Israel in 1981 after which he returned to California to form The Krav Maga Association of America. (KMAA) The KMAA have until recently had good relations with the IKMF though currently the two organisations are at loggerheads over several matters.

These organizations tend to emphasise their lineage with Imi and broadly speaking have more of a boxing/kick boxing style as compared to the more jiu-jitsu based approach of Moni Aizik’s Commando Krav Maga - founded and based in Canada - and Avi Nardia’s Kapap.

There is also Hisardut, Hebrew for survival. Around 1975 Dennis Hanover, a South African immigrant to Israel in 1960, contributed to the Israeli military martial arts in a significant way. His background was in ju jitsu and kyokushinkai karate. He was neither a Krav Maga nor a KAPAP instructor, but was commissioned by the army to contribute to the new counter-terrorist program called LOTAR (deriving its name from the counter-terrorist school Lochama Be'Terror), because of his innovative teaching style. He had created his own system called Dennis Hisardut (Dennis for his first name, combined with the Hebrew word "survival"). Now in his 60's, he has a thriving martial arts school in the city of Herzliya.

Although there are many different Israeli systems, we believe that there are some common features forged by the unique Israeli experience:

• A core emphasis on mental toughness
• Versatility to overcome any attacker
• A strong tendency to innovate and update regularly in order to stay one step ahead of the enemy and all potential attackers
• Practical but deadly tactics executed with technical efficiency
• The abandonment of the formality of traditional defence systems in favour of methodologies that value instinctive and rapid learning
• A collective mind open to assimilating techniques from other systems across the globe, e.g. Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructors have recently demonstrated to the IDF.

This philosophy perfectly encapsualtes the ethos of Urban Krav Maga.