Krav Maga

Fighting style created by Hungarian-born Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld in 1948.

Having grown up in Bratislava during a time of anti-Semitic unrest, Lichtenfeld used his training as a boxer and wrestler to defend Jewish neighborhoods in the mid-to-late 1930s. After his immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the late 1940s, he began to provide lessons on combat training to Jewish paramilitary groups that would later form the IDF during the 1948 Palestine war. As an instructor, he compiled his knowledge and experience into the combat system that would later become known as Krav Maga.