Grave of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
After the massacres of 1366 and 1391 and the Inquisitions that began in 1492, the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were forced from the lands where they had lived for over thirteen hundred years. Some of the surviving Jews decided to fight back and punish the evil Spanish empire. Jews became pirates and sought to destroy Spain by destroying its fleet. Jewish pirates operating with other enemies of Spain in fact “brought the Spanish Empire to its knees” in the late 1660s (Edward Kritzler, Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, Aurum Press, London, 2014, 10).
During the centuries following the expulsion of the Jews from the Spanish empire, the Jews actively fought back and helped found colonies in the New World. Jews participated in an unsuccessful Dutch attack on Brazil on May 8, 1624. The hope was always the same; to find a place where a Jew could live openly as a Jew without fear from the Christian Church.
Although history tends to paint a picture of Jews as helpless victims, this is not true. Even during massacres, Jews often fought back. In 1768, in Uman, Ukraine, the Haidamak army attacked Jews and Poles with the intention of destroying them all. The Jews actively fought back and put up a courageous defense. As the situation became worse, the last Jews gathered in the synagogue. The defense efforts were led by Leib Shargorodski and Moshe Menaker. Tragically, they were destroyed by cannon fire and slaughtered.
Dhu-Nuwas, a cousin of Mar Zutra, became ruler of the area in Saudi Arabia now known as Medina, between the years 517-525. After many stunning victories, he was eventually defeated by the combined armies of Ethiopia and Rome.
Many Jewish tribes had been living in the Hijaz, western Arabia, for centuries. Thus, Jews predated Muslims in the birthplace of Islam. No one seems to know for sure how they came to live there; possibly they were sent by Joshua to fight the Amalek, or perhaps they escaped Roman persecution in the Land of Israel.
Two of the tribes were cohanim, descended from the priests of the tribe of Levi, those who served in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. The rise of Islam led to attacks on these tribes and their loss of independence, but many did fight back. It is said that when the Muslims attacked the Jews of Khaybar they fought back with fierce opposition. In particular, the Jewish archers of Khaybar were known as the best in Arabia. They held back the larger Muslim forces for five days. It was only the capture of a Jewish spy and his revealing vital information that led to the Jewish defeat.
“The Jews in these parts are held in high esteem by everyone in Yemen and Aden. They are said to be courageous, always with their weapons and wild long hair, and the names of their towns are mentioned by the Jews of Yemen with great admiration—Shmuel Yavnieli, 1912” (Ken Blady, Jewish Communities in Exotic Places, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 2000, 32).
There are a number of legends about the origins of the Jews of Habban. The most prominent is that they descend from Judean soldiers who were stationed in southern Arabia by King Herod of Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period. Herod dispatched a unit of Jews in the region to assist the Romans with fighting wars in the area. Unlike the Jews of northern Yemen, the Habbani Jews wore jambiyya (curved knife), matznaph (turban), and avne’t (sash).
There were isolated communities of Jews throughout the Caucus Mountains and through Central Asia into Tibet, with small independent Jewish mountain kingdoms. They often lived in impenetrable strongholds to prevent enemies from invading their lands.
America became that “great experiment in self-government.” America was certainly not without its anti-Semites and racists, but whenever Jews were permitted, they participated fully in all aspects of early American life, including in the fighting. October 25, 1765, at the state house in Philadelphia a group of merchants gathered to sign the non-importation agreement to fight against the hated Stamp Tax of the British government. The first man to step forward to sign his name, Mathias Bush, was the president of Mikve Israel Congregation, Philadelphia’s only synagogue. Aaron Solomon fought in the front ranks of the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1776. Francis Salvador, a Jewish soldier in the South, was killed by Indians on July 1, 1776, thus becoming the first Jew to die for America. Jewish merchants turned their ships into war vessels for the war effort. They ravaged the British at sea.
“Men such as Aaron Lopez were bankrupted supporting the Revolution when their ships were lost to the British. In the area of finance, the young American government might have foundered too, except for the financial genius and personal financial risk and support taken on by Hayim Solomon. Solomon was to die bankrupted by his total support of the American cause. Though small in number the Jews chose to cast their fate with America” (Jerry Klinger, “How the Jews Saved the American Revolution,” bitly.com/klinger-j, www.jewishmag.com, accessed June 30, 2015).
Some feel that the actions of a small group of Jews were instrumental in the great American victory against General Cornwallis. There was a free island, the Island of Dutch St. Eustatius. Jewish merchants and arms traders were a major presence on the island. From this island, Jewish merchants shipped supplies for the American war effort. The British decided it was paramount to destroy this community. They attacked the Jews, burning every house, including the synagogue. While this was going on, the French, (allied with the Americans), under Admiral DeGrasse, attacked the now weakened British fleet. As a result, Cornwallis never received his badly needed supplies. General George Washington, seeing his opportunity, trapped and besieged Cornwallis. In short course Cornwallis surrendered. The war was over. Jews have fought side by side with their fellow Americans in every war America was involved in, including, tragically, both sides of the Civil War.
From Peddlers and Scholars to the World’s Best Warriors
During our long exile, many Jews lost the tradition of the warrior nation. The proud nation of Israel found itself exiled, homeless, stateless, and powerless. The rabbis tried to discourage any feelings of warrior-ship, as this could only lead to tragedy and false hope under their current unfortunate circumstances. Perhaps it was also fear of the host nations, both Christian and Muslim, which taught the people to keep a low profile and downplay the historical militarism of the Jewish people. Truly what purpose would it serve to celebrate the military aspects of the Jewish tradition? Surely the best policy would be to come across as a pious, book-centered people, not a people with a propensity for war and revolution.
So the Jew accepted his new role and did what needed to be done to survive. The Jew became an expert at survival and maintaining his unique faith. More than that would have been nearly impossible. So the Jew became the “fiddler on the roof,” trying “to eke out a miserable tune without falling off the roof,” that is to say, trying to maintain his body and soul, his faith and religion without being physically destroyed.
Who has not seen “Fiddler on the Roof,” the classic screen adaptation of Sholom Aleichem’s Yiddish stories? Tevya is a classic Jew; praying, reading the holy books, trying to make a living, and trying to survive the unpredictable outbursts of the local anti-Semites. He does not fight back; he prays to God and keeps a low profile as he waits for the Messiah. “For though he may tarry, I believe he will come.” The Jew longed for the Messiah, the redeemer—even if he should tarry, the Jew would wait.
The joke is told: a Jew comes to the rabbi; he needs a job. The rabbi says, “I have a job for you. Go on the roof of the synagogue, look to the east, look to the west, to the north and to the south. When you see the Messiah coming, let me know.”
“Very good,” says the man, “I can do that. How much does this job pay?”
“Two kopecks a day,” says the rabbi.
“Only two kopecks! That’s not very much,” says the disappointed man.
“Yes,” says the rabbi, “but it is steady work.”
In biblical days, we had plenty of warrior heroes. During the years of exile and persecution there were certainly instances of Jewish self-defense, but on the whole, the Jews were defenseless. They were a scattered people, living by the grace of some local lord or king—just trying to survive, make a living, and maintain their traditional way of life. They could not fight the local armies. The Jew used his wits and intelligence to survive; forming an army was not an option.
During much of this time, Jews were not allowed to become citizens and were not permitted to serve in the military. When the opportunity did arrive, they served with gusto. Many Jews in Germany, for instance, received the highest awards for bravery while serving in combat units during World War One. We know this because when the Nazis came to round them up for execution during the years of the Holocaust, these Jewish/German war heroes pulled out their medals of honor to prove their service to the fatherland. Of course, this did not prevent or even delay their murder. One such Jew was Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, whose diary told the story of a Jewish girl in hiding during the Holocaust. Otto was an officer in World War One and earned the Iron Cross fighting for Germany, the “fatherland.” Otto was eventually sent to Auschwitz.
Jews in other lands also enthusiastically joined the military as they were eager to prove that they were worthy citizens. Jews fought for many countries and on many fronts. The tragic result of this was that on some occasions Jewish soldiers ended up killing “enemy” soldiers who were also Jewish. They knew the victim was Jewish when they heard him recite the martyr’s final words in Hebrew as he died; Shma Yisrael (Hear oh Israel!).
It is not commonly known that Jews not only participated in every war, fighting for their host country alongside their “countrymen” but they also participated in wars of national liberation. “A unit known as the Beardlings, composed of staunchly religious Jews, distinguished itself in the revolt of 1830-1831. Jews participated in the Polish Rising of 1860-1863 and a Jewish legion led by Berek Joselowicz fought for Poland against the Czar with ‘exceptional valor, against overwhelming odds’” (Karen Sutton, The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, 2014, 31-32).
Although no in-depth studies seem to exist of Jewish self-defense during these years, we do know from oral stories that Jews did, at times, stand up to their tormentors. My late grandfather, Rabbi Isaac Klein, was born and spent his youth in Hungary. He related the following story, “There was a gang of Cossacks that went from town to town attacking Jews. Word reached us that they would soon be arriving, via train, to our village. Men who had served with the Hungarian army in World War One arranged a group to ‘greet’ these Cossacks at the railroad station. Armed with sticks with nails in them, knives, and other makeshift weapons, the Jews waited. When the Cossacks arrived and saw the ‘welcoming committee’ they got right back on the train.” My grandfather loved telling this story.
With the birth of political Zionism in the 19th century, the Jewish attitude toward their homes in the exile began to change. Some Jews came to the conclusion that living in Europe, or under any foreign power, would never work. Various plans were devised for the development of an independent state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, our ancestral homeland.
Among the paths advocated was that of Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky who felt Jews must become a nation that can fight for its own survival and protection. In the 1920s and 1930s, he began urging Jews to arm themselves and train in the use of firearms. He penned a famous and controversial essay, “Jewish youth, learn to shoot!” or in Yiddish, “Yiddin, learn tzoo shissin!” “Of all the necessities of national rebirth, shooting is the most important….We are forced to learn to shoot and it is futile to argue against the compulsion of an historical reality.”
Jabotinsky also believed that until a Jewish state was reestablished, Jews should form their own units and fight alongside the allies in World War One. “The Jewish nation’s place is therefore on all the fronts where countries fight for those very foundations of society whose Magna Carta is our Bible” (Vladimir Jabotinsky, The War and the Jew, Altalena Press, Tova Press, Inc. 1987, 25).
In December 1914, Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor, a legendary Jewish veteran of the Russian army, raised the idea of forming a Jewish unit to fight as part of the British forces. They wanted to help conquer the Land of Israel, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Trumpeldor, the one-armed hero of the Japanese-Russian War, had been awarded the St. George Order, the highest Russian military award for bravery, four times. He was also the first Jew to become an officer in the Tsarist Army.
From around the world, the two men raised a force of over six hundred Jewish soldiers, which became known as the Zion Mule Corps. Both Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor actually served in this unit, leading by example. Trumpeldor, known by all as a fearless warrior, was injured during one of the battles. One of the men to volunteer was Private David Ben-Gurion, later to become Israel’s first prime minister. This was the first Jewish fighting force, with a Jewish flag and emblem, to participate in a war since the days of General Bar Kochba, eighteen hundred and six years earlier.
The Zion Mule Corps saw action on the Gallipoli front. Of the valiant Jewish contingent, six were killed and fifty-five were injured in combat. Three were awarded military honors. When this unit was disbanded, its soldiers formed the nucleus of what would become the Jewish Legion.
In 1917, the formation of the Jewish regiment was formally announced. Again, Jabotinsky personally served with the troops. “The only conditional demand was that Jews should be allowed to fight as Jews; that it should be recorded in the annals of this war that the Jews were one of the peoples fighting for the common good cause” (Ibid., 26). Jabotinsky’s idea was that at the end of the war, the Jewish nation would be rewarded for its efforts with an independent state, not as a gift, but as part of the victor’s share.
A change was taking place. Jews realized that prayer alone was not enough; they must fight for their freedom. Young Jews in Europe began preparing for life in Israel by learning skills Jews had forsaken for a long time—farming, agriculture, and military training.
Sadly, they did not have to wait for their arrival in Israel to use these skills. The rise of Germany and the plan to exterminate the Jewish nation awakened the greatest heroism and bravery among the Jewish people.
The notion that the Jewish people went quietly to their graves is an incorrect simplification of a very complex and multifaceted issue. In fact, even during the dark years of World War Two, the spirit of resistance was everywhere—despite the hopelessness of the situation. In the Warsaw ghetto, the Jewish resistance fought off the Nazi war machine for over three weeks. A few hundred poorly armed, starved Jews managed to humiliate the mighty German industrial war machine. Echoes were heard from nearly two thousand years earlier when the starved defenders of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem held back the mighty Roman army. Echoes were heard from the defenders of Masada. The same warrior heart was still beating; the same warrior spirit was still fighting.
Armed with a few guns purchased at a heavy price from smugglers, merchants, and gentile partisans, and with home-made Molotov cocktails and other homemade weapons, the Jews beat back the Nazis day after day. They were only defeated when the Nazis leveled the ghetto, destroying building after building. The ghetto went up in flames, just as the Temple had two millennia earlier.
Two months later, Jewish snipers were still firing at Germans from sewers and hiding places. Those Jews who managed to escape the ghetto joined the partisans and continued to fight the Nazis. Countless chapters of heroism were recorded during those times. “Far from going to their slaughter like sheep, the Jews resisted in Warsaw, Vilna, Bialystok, and others, and in concentration camps such as Treblinka, Sobibor, and the rest, and in the forests” (Lester Eckman and Chaim Lazar, The Jewish Resistance, Shengold Publishers, New York, 1977, 11).
What makes the Jewish resistance even more remarkable during these difficult times is that it had been so long since Jews had fought. Nearly two thousand years of exile had taken their toll. They were simply not prepared. And yet, in a short amount of time they made the transition. “The Jews in dispersion did not have warlike traditions. They had not been brought up in the spirit of war and bearing weapons. They had not been taught to value weapons and to use them. They had received an education emphasizing love for peace. Jewish youth were not imbued with the military spirit; e.g., using weapons in defense of Jewish national pride and taking merciless revenge against an enemy. Jewish youth were not taught the (biblical) command ‘If someone comes to kill you, get up and kill him.’ In short, young Jews were not reared in a Spartan, militaristic tradition” (Ibid., 15-16).
In addition, the young Jews faced serious dilemmas; should they leave elderly family members behind and join the fighting partisans? Should an able-bodied man leave his wife and children and go fight? Should the most able and fit abandon a community? And yet, “In spite of these dilemmas there emerged a Jewish partisan movement of tens of thousands of fighters, with the common purpose of preserving the honor of Israel. Jewish partisans were daring men, imbued from childhood with love of Torah, Israel and the dignity of man.…In eastern Europe, in Russia, in the western Ukraine there was hardly a single town without some underground nucleus from which sprang a Jewish partisan group” (Ibid., 16).
One of the exceptional partisan groups was known as Bielski Partisans. Under the command of Tuvia Bielski, who had served in the Polish army from 1927 to 1929, and led by the four Bielski brothers, this group fought back against the Nazis and their allies.
Following the Germans’ Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union that began on June 22, 1941, the Nazis began murdering the Jews who now fell under their control. The Bielski brothers had witnessed their parents and three other siblings being taken away by the Nazis. They were killed in the ghetto in December 1941. The four remaining brothers fled to the nearby Zabielovo and Perelaz forests and began their struggle for revenge and survival. Most of their group were women, children, and elderly. Only about one hundred fifty members engaged in armed operations.
In 1943, with the increased danger of being discovered by German patrols, the Bielskis took their entire group deeper into the most inaccessible regions of the forest. In the Bielski camp, everyone worked—some built huts, others fixed clothing, guns, and tools. There were shoemakers, metal workers, nurses—everyone did what they could. They set up a school, metalworking shop, synagogue, kitchen, mill, bakery, bathhouse, and a medical clinic. The group became a real community.
“At the same time that it saved lives and protected the noncombatants in the camp, the Bielski group carried out several operational missions. It attacked the Belorussian auxiliary police officials, as well as local farmers suspected of killing Jews. The group disabled German trains, blew up railbeds, destroyed bridges, and facilitated escapes from Jewish ghettos. The Bielski fighters often joined with Soviet partisans in operations against German guards and facilities, killing many Germans and Belorussian collaborators” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.).
On June 22, 1944, Soviet troops initiated a massive offensive in Eastern Belorussia. Within six weeks, the Bielski group was free. During this period, they saved twelve hundred thirty-six Jewish men, women, and children from certain death. None of the Bielskis ever sought any recognition or reward for their actions. In 1948, Tuvia and Zus Bielski would fight again, this time it would be in Israel—against the Arabs.
The most famous instance of Jewish resistance was in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland. On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. For a long time, many of the Jews held on to the belief that some of them would survive; that the Nazis did not plan to kill them all. Surely, they said, the Nazis would not kill so many valuable factory workers, these workers were vital to the Nazi war effort, it simply made no sense! The Jew held on to his sense of logic and could not fathom the Nazi plan of genocide. The signs were there. In retrospect, they were very clear, but the idea was so unthinkable to normal civilized people that most Jews were simply unable to draw the correct conclusion. Others realized that logic was dead, and soon so would be the Jew. Now there was no longer any doubt. Now they knew that the trains that arrived daily were not taking them for “resettlement.” The destination of the deportations was now known to the Jews—it was the Treblinka Death Camp.
Survivor, “witness,” Marek Edelman, describes some daily events in the ghetto.
Three children sit, one behind the other, in front of the hospital. A gendarme, passing by, shoots all three with a single round.
A pregnant woman trips and falls while crossing the street. A German, present during the accident, does not allow her to rise and shoots her right there and then.
Dozens of those smuggling across the ghetto wall are killed by a new German technique: Germans clad in civilian clothes, with Jewish arm-bands and weapons hidden in burlap bags, wait for the instant when the smugglers scale the wall. At that very moment machine-guns appear from the bags and the fate of the group is settled.
Every morning a small Opel stops at Orla Street. Every morning a shackled man is thrown out of the car and shot in the first house entrance. It is a Jew who had been caught on the “Aryan side” without identification papers (Marek Edelman, The Ghetto Fights, Bookmarks, 1990).
The Jewish revolt was led by two twenty-three-year-old men, Pavel Frankel and Mordecai Anielewicz. Seven hundred fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The Nazi combat troops entered the ghetto expecting an easy job. The well-trained troops, however, suffered heavy losses as they were repeatedly ambushed by Jewish fighters who fired at them with an odd assortment of rifles, machine guns, and pistols; and launched Molotov cocktails and hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows.
Marek Edelman describes the opening of the uprising.
At 4 am the Germans in groups of threes, fours, or fives, so as not to arouse the ZOB’s (Jewish fighting group) or the population’s suspicion began penetrating into the “inter-ghetto” areas. Here they formed into platoons and companies. At 7 o’clock motorized detachments, including a number of tanks and armored vehicles, entered the ghetto. Artillery pieces were placed outside the walls. Now the SS-men were ready to attack. In closed formations stepping haughtily and loudly, they marched into the seemingly dead streets of the central ghetto. Their triumph appeared to be complete. It looked as if this superbly equipped modern army had scared off the handful of bravado-drunk men, as if those few immature boys had at last realized that there was no point in attempting the unfeasible, that they understood that the Germans had more rifles than there were rounds for all their pistols.
But no, they did not scare us and we were not taken by surprise. We were only awaiting an opportune moment. Such a moment presently arrived. The Germans chose the intersection at Mila and Zamenhofa Streets for their bivouac area, and battle groups barricaded at the four corners of the street opened concentric fire on them. Strange projectiles began exploding everywhere (the hand grenades of our own make), the lone machine-gun sent shots through the air now and then (ammunition had to be conserved carefully), rifles started firing a bit farther away. Such was the beginning.
The Germans attempted a retreat, but their path was cut. German dead soon littered the street. The remainder tried to find cover in the neighboring stores and house entrances, but this shelter proved insufficient. The “glorious” SS, therefore, called tanks into action under the cover of which the remaining men of two companies were to commence a “victorious” retreat. But even the tanks seemed to be affected by the Germans’ bad luck. The first was burned out by one of our incendiary bottles; the rest did not approach our positions. The fate of the Germans caught in the Mita Street-Zamenhofa Street trap was settled. Not a single German left this area alive (Ibid.).
The Nazi commander, General Stroop, was to lose his post over this defeat. The job of liquidating the ghetto was supposed to take three days. With the initial repulsion of the German troops the freedom fighters put up two flags, one for Poland and one, blue and white, for the Jews. These flags were well-seen from the Warsaw streets and remained atop the house for four entire days, despite German attempts to remove them. This greatly angered the Germans.
The matter of the flags was of great political and moral importance. It reminded hundreds of thousands of the cause of freedom; it excited them and unified the population; both Jews and Poles. Flags and national colors are a means of combat exactly like a rapid-fire weapon. Heinrich Himmler bellowed into the phone: “Stroop, you must at all costs bring down those two flags” (Moshe Arens, Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto, Gefen Publishing House, 2011).
Another German armored vehicle was destroyed in an insurgent counterattack after Stroop’s ultimatum to surrender was rejected by the defenders. The Nazis resorted to systematically burning houses block by block with flamethrowers and by blowing up basements and sewers. “We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans. The sea of flames flooded houses and courtyards….There was no air, only black, choking smoke and heavy burning heat radiating from the red-hot walls, from the glowing stone stairs,” recalled Marek Edelman in 2003.
The ZZW lost all its leaders, and on April 29, 1943, the remaining fighters escaped the ghetto through the Muranowski tunnel and relocated to the Michalin forest. This event marked the end of the organized resistance, and of significant fighting.
Grave of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
The remaining Jews, civilians, and surviving fighters, took cover in the “bunker” dugouts which were carefully hidden among the largely burned-out ruins of the ghetto. The German troops employed dogs to discover the hideouts, using smoke grenades and tear gas to force Jews out. In many instances, the Jews came out of their hiding places firing at the Germans, while a number of female fighters lobbed hidden grenades or fired concealed handguns after they had surrendered. It is important to note that Jewish women fought bravely side by side with the men. Small groups of Jewish insurgents engaged German patrols in nighttime skirmishes. However, German losses were minimal following the first ten days of the uprising.
On May 8, 1943, the Germans discovered the main command post of the Jewish fighters, located at Mila 18 Street. Most of its leadership and dozens of remaining fighters were killed, while others committed mass suicide by ingesting cyanide. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. Pockets of resistance remained until August of that year. The Jewish fighters of the ghetto held out longer than anyone could have expected.
The Jews of the Bialystok Ghetto, as well, organized a resistance movement, although by this time the Nazis were better prepared. Nonetheless, the starved and poorly armed Jews put up a courageous fight. The day chosen for resistance was the day the Germans were to come in for the final liquidation of the ghetto. The Jews’ only hope was to die bravely and inflict damage upon the enemy. At this time, the entire Jewish arsenal consisted of twenty-five German rifles, roughly one hundred rifles and pistols, a few Tommy guns, some hand grenades, and one heavy machine gun. There were also a few sticks of dynamite, bottles filled with vitriol (Molotov cocktails) and an unspecified number of axes, knives, and bayonets. With these weapons and a great deal of courage, the Jews would take on the Nazi army.
When the Nazis entered the ghetto, SS officers were in an armored car escorted by three light tanks; a young Jewish girl named Dora ran up and shot an SS officer dead. She was then shot and killed, along with others, in a burst of machine gun fire. At every turn, the advancing Nazi columns were attacked by Jewish fighters hiding in buildings. The Germans withdrew and sent in the air force.
Bravery was everywhere. In one instance, a group of elderly Jews armed with nothing but stones and a few Molotov cocktails tried to storm a tank. They were cut down before they could get close enough to throw their homemade weapons. In the end, the ghetto was bombed and destroyed. Some of the surviving fighters managed to escape to the forests and join the partisans. The rest were rounded up and taken to death camps.
The partisans were irregular troops fighting the Nazi occupiers of their countries. There were Soviets and Yugoslavs, Albanians and Poles, Ukrainians and French, and there were Jews. The Jewish partisans were unique in two ways; one, they really had no country to fight for, and two; they often faced anti-Semitism from the other partisans.
The Jewish fighters often joined the partisans after the ghetto uprisings. When there was no hope in the ghetto, they left for the forests. Some joined “mixed” partisan groups consisting of Soviets or Slavs, while others formed independent Jewish partisan groups. Some groups consisted only of fighters while others had non-combatants as well—women, children, and the elderly. Many women participated as brave and valiant fighters, often many died in combat.
The partisan groups engaged in guerrilla warfare and sabotage, rarely facing the enemy head on. They blew up German convoys, derailed trains, damaged railroads and bridges, sabotaged communication lines, and attacked small groups. They even managed to free some Jews from the ghettos and concentration camps.
They fought the Nazi occupation any way they could. In some cases, they helped organize uprisings in ghettos. An estimated twenty thousand to thirty thousand Jewish partisans fought the Nazis, killing an estimated three thousand German soldiers in Lithuania alone, and causing great damage.
Life for the partisans was difficult, harsh. Food was hard to come by, shelter was no more than a hole in the ground, and there was the constant fear of being discovered by a Nazi patrol. Their clothing was inadequate and they had to deal with the severe cold. It was difficult for the Jews to join the partisans; first they had to escape, constantly fearing detection by local residents. They had to move in small groups. Then they had to find the partisans in the forests. Once they arrived and were accepted they were eager to fight back. Life was always perilous and usually short. One never knew who to trust, or what the next day would bring. “Never say that this is the end of the road,” wrote Hirsch Glick, the young Jewish poet who authored the song that would become known as “The Partisans’ Anthem,” but for many Jews—it was (accessed June 30, 2015). And yet the Jewish people marched on.
One of the lesser known aspects of Jewish resistance is the story of forced Jewish laborers who served with the Hungarian army. Many of these men were former soldiers, many had no military background. From the spring of 1942, they were forced to work as slave laborers for the Hungarian army. Eighty percent died as a result of the harsh conditions, starvation, and outright murder.
On rare occasions, the Jewish laborers were given weapons to fight the Soviet enemy and the partisans. The Jewish laborers fought valiantly, although this was against their own cause. Some still felt pride in being Hungarian nationalists, despite being stripped of citizenship and deprived of all rights, and some felt that by proving their loyalty they would secure better living conditions and have a higher chance of survival.
Mor Heller, a Jewish survivor, tells us, “As forced laborers we were also given weapons by the Germans. Once, we sensed movement in the bushes and shot…and they (the partisans) returned fire. We lost twenty men in the ensuing combat…the Germans arrived and praised us for daring to fight the partisans” (Robert Rozett, Conscripted Slaves, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2014, 112).
On other occasions, they fought without permission. A Hungarian officer who kept a diary wrote, “Our men were routed and ran away, leaving behind the wounded and the dead; the unarmed Jews (the forced laborers), under heavy enemy fire, went back to the battlefield and fetched the wounded and dead soldiers back, and of the Jews in the company, about fifty were killed and twice as many wounded.”
Another diarist wrote, “When close combat was fought at the bridge-head, the very ‘core,’ they did not care about having a yellow armband, but seized Russian machine-guns, and with these…they fought the battle to the end, without permission. A number of them fell” (Ibid., 152).
Another chapter of Jewish bravery came when many of the Jewish forced laborers were taken captive by the Soviet forces. While most ended up being treated as enemy soldiers, not different from Germans or Hungarians, some were privileged to serve as a fighting unit within the Red Army.
Former labor service men born in prewar Czechoslovakia were allowed, after a thorough interview, to join a special Czechoslovak unit under the Soviets. The Czechoslovak Brigade, under the command of Ludvik Svoboda, later president of Czechoslovakia, went into action in May 1943. Jews held many of the key positions in this unit. They fought many important battles where Jews distinguished themselves for bravery. The result was a very high casualty rate. In 1944, the corps crossed into Slovakia and liberated Prague in May 1945 (Ibid., 237).
During World War Two, while the Nazis and their allies were murdering six million Jews, there were other Jews, in free lands, who joined the armed forces in droves. It is estimated that almost one million five hundred thousand Jews fought in the allied armies. Some three hundred thousand Jewish soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines died serving in the allied armies in World War Two; among them eleven thousand American Jewish soldiers.
Many Jewish scientists played decisive roles in developing the atom bomb; saving millions of Americans and allies from dying in a potential invasion of Japan. Twenty-nine hundred and fifty-six British Jewish servicemen and women were killed fighting in World War Two. More than seven hundred Jews from the Land of Israel died serving in the British Commonwealth Forces; there was a five thousand strong Jewish infantry brigade in the British army that fought in Italy in 1945. At least thirty-five Israeli generals served in this unit.
Jews from the Land of Israel also served in a special British commando unit in North Africa; called SIG, “Special Interrogation Unit” but also known as “The Lions of Judah.” The year was 1941 and the British were in a desperate situation. They were facing Erwin Rommel, the genius general of Germany, who had already conquered most of North Africa and was ready to invade Egypt.
Captain Herbert Buck, a British commander who was fluent in German, was put in charge of creating a special unit that could go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc on the Germans. He recruited German Jews who were fluent in German. Some were “Palestinian Jews” who had escaped Nazi Germany, gone to Israel, and gained military experience by serving with Jewish militias—the Haganah, Irgun, and Palmach. Others had been with the French Foreign Legion. Many had lost their families to the Nazi genocide. All wanted revenge. Captain Buck explained to them that the operation would be extremely difficult and if they were caught and their true identity was found out, there would be no hope for them. They succeed in destroying a Nazi airfield and causing great damage, but part of the unit was betrayed by a German POW and they died heroically in battle.
Between two hundred thousand and two hundred fifty thousand Soviet Jewish servicemen were killed in the war (five hundred thousand served in all).
Thirty thousand Polish Jews were killed in action in the 1939 campaign to defend Poland during the German invasion that started World War Two; with many more killed serving in the Free Polish Forces in Italy, North Africa, and other fronts. “More than one hundred thousand Jews were members of the Polish army in the campaign of September 1939; about thirty thousand fell in the fighting and sixty thousand were captured by the Germans. Despite this, and with no connection to the Jews’ warm welcome of the Soviet forces, their Polish comrades-in-arms turned their backs on them the moment they were taken captive and harassed and humiliated them in front of their German captors” (Nahum Bogner, At the Mercy of Strangers, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2009).
In Czechoslovakia, Jews fought in every possible way, despite anti-Semitism on every level. “Some sixteen hundred Jews had participated in the Slovak uprising and had fought as partisans and soldiers against the Nazis and their accomplices, and hundreds of Slovak Jews had seen action on the western and eastern fronts while serving in the Czechoslovak army” (Yehoshua Buchler, The Profile of the Jews in Slovakia after World War II, Yalkut Moreshet, 65, 1998, 119-32).
The Jews of Germany, despite their hopeless situation, also managed to participate in the fighting and contribute to the allied war effort. No one was waiting for the world to “come and save them.” The Jews did everything they could. More than twenty thousand German Jews and over fifteen thousand Austrian Jews found ways into regular armies to fight the Nazis. Many of them joined the British forces, some even managed to join the US forces. Other armies that they joined included the Red Army, the Free French, the Eighth Australian Division, and the home guard in New Zealand.
“It is important to note that these German Jews took upon themselves a much greater risk than other soldiers. While every soldier faced the risk of death in battle or the risk of being taken prisoner, Jewish soldiers knew that if they fell into German hands, they would receive ‘special treatment’ and not be treated as regular POWs. In particular, a special fate would await Jews who were once German citizens and now were fighting against the fatherland. Indeed, this took great courage,” (David Bankier, editor, Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism, Berghahn Books, 2000).
Thousands of Jewish soldiers died in the French army in 1940, as well as in the Free Greek, Czech, Free French, Belgian, Commonwealth (i.e., Canada, New Zealand, etc.) armies that fought on many fronts. There were even Jewish soldiers in the British Indian army who fought in Italy, Burma, and other countries. Jews fought back wherever they could.
My grandfather, Rabbi Isaac Klein, served as a chaplain in the US army, my uncle M. Bernard Resnikoff served, and we lost a cousin, Irwin Wilburt (Willie) Newman, in the Battle of the Bulge. Five days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, my grandfather, a congregational rabbi in Massachusetts, stunned his congregation with the message that “Jews should join the war.” A woman in the congregation said, “Easy for you to say, Rabbi, you’re too old to be drafted.” He then informed her that he had already volunteered. He would eventually land with the US forces on D-Day at Utah Beach, Normandy, France. Another Jewish soldier recalled “waking up on the beach at Normandy and seeing a man draped in tallith and teffilin and a prayer book in his hands.”
Cousin Willie served with the 315th regiment, 79th Infantry Division. He died on January 17th, 1945, in one of the toughest battles of the war. His final resting place is in the American military cemetery in St. Avold, France. Jews served with valor on all fronts.
Some say the Jews waited for the “world to rescue them.” They did not. The Jewish people did all they could, as part of the conquered lands such as Poland and France, as part of the Soviet army, and as part of the Allied Forces. Sadly, this was not enough—two-thirds of the Jews of Europe were murdered; one of every three Jews on the planet was gone.
Those who survived long enough to make it to the promised Land of Israel found that the Middle East was not very hospitable to Jews either. Survivors of the ghettos and the partisans now had to fight the Arabs and the British. The road to freedom was a long and bloody one. The fight was far from over.
To borrow a Christian phrase, this was a “baptism of fire.” Many men and women had fought the Nazis in the ghettos and in the forests. They came to Israel and joined one of the pre-state underground forces. Then, in 1947-1948, they fought the Arabs again in the War of Independence. Some would fight again in the war of 1956. By the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it would be their sons who would carry on the fighting. Their grandsons would fight in the Lebanon Wars and in Gaza.
From the peddlers of Eastern Europe to the battlefields of Israel a transformation took place. The Jew returned to his biblical roots and reclaimed his role as a warrior. A true warrior believes in a cause and is willing to sacrifice everything for it. “Who is the fighter who believes in what he fights for? Surely it is the man who is always prepared to begin anew in order to implement his beliefs. This preparedness is imprinted in the history and traditions of the most militant among nations—the Jewish people” (Menachem Begin).
The Jews of Israel would fight war after war over the next sixty-seven years. Officially, there have been seven wars, but in between wars we have the constant war on terrorism and “campaigns” against terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon. And still, our enemies have not come to terms with our existence. Sadly, this land has not known peace. Today, the Israelis are known for being among the fiercest and most innovative warriors. We have no choice.
The story is told that future Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, met with United States president Harry Truman. BG, as he was known, wanted to declare an independent state to be called the State of Israel—Truman objected. He said Israel did not have the manpower or weapons to defend against and defeat the vast Arab armies, and the United States would not send American boys to die for Israel. “Pressures were exerted on the Jewish representatives in Washington and elsewhere to postpone what might precipitate action and thus avoid forcing the Arab armies to go to war. But David Ben-Gurion, head of what was known then as the “People’s Directorate,” decided that the historic opportunity that had been created must be seized, and his view prevailed” (Chaim Herzog, The Arab – Israeli Wars, Vintage, 2005, 46).
Our rabbis say there are those who earn their place in the world to come in one instant. This was Ben-Gurion’s moment—he declared the State of Israel. He said in Israel we do not pray for miracles—we count on them (even though he was not a religious man).
The Jewish community numbered only six hundred thousand individuals—men, women, and children. The total force that could be mobilized was about forty-five thousand individuals. Of these, Chaim Herzog says about thirty thousand had functions limited to local defense. Thus, there were only about fifteen thousand active combat soldiers. Ammunition was so low that only two of every three soldiers could be armed. The air force consisted of eleven single engine, light aircraft and the Navy consisted of a few motorboats. This force, with its limited combat experience, was all that there was to fend off the regular armies of five Arab nations plus the local Arab gangs and militias. The Arab armies facing Israel were: the Transjordan Arab Legion, the Arab Liberation Army, the Mufti’s Army of Salvation, and the regular armies of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, plus contingents from Saudi Arabia.
Photos from this war show men, women, teenagers, and old people fighting side by side. Defending the cities of Jerusalem and Safed, there are photos of rabbis with long beards, their guns sticking out from the barricades. Truly this war was fought, and won, by a people’s army. Anyone who could fight—fought. It was a fight for survival. As the Arab leaders pointed out, it was going to be a fight to the finish and “woe to the vanquished.”
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, wanted to “Settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy” (Edward Black, Banking on Baghdad, Dialog Press, Westport, CT, 2008, 313).
The Iraqi air force, alone, consisted of one hundred planes. The Egyptian air force had over thirty Spitfires, four Hawker Hurricanes, and twenty C47’s modified into crude bombers. The Syrian air force had fifty planes. They had men, tanks, complete armies, but Israel had a true people’s army.
The young state in formation fought back. Israel lost a full one percent of its total population. The modern State of Israel was born. In blood and fire Zion fell and in blood and fire Zion arose again. After nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people had a free and independent homeland. Despite all the efforts of emperors, generals, new religions that emerged from Judaism, (Christianity and Islam), and every form of persecution, the passionate ties between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people never weakened. Israel, Zion, Jerusalem, was constantly on their lips and in their hearts. Whenever the opportunity arose to “return home,” to a home most had never even seen, the Jew risked everything to return to his homeland.
CHAPTER 15
Principles of Krav Maga/Israeli Self-Defense
Along with the reemergence of the Israeli warrior nation came the Israeli unarmed combat style known as Krav Maga. Today, Krav Maga is taught all over the world. It is perhaps the leading “reality self-defense” in the world today. Martial arts experts, police, military, and special forces from many nations come to Israel to learn this art firsthand from Israelis.
Krav Maga means “combat – contact” or “close quarter combat.” Krav Maga has no single “founder” and no official beginning. It is the product of the needs of the times and the efforts of many instructors over the years, each adding and modifying based on his skills and experience.
The roots of modern Krav Maga began with the need for self-defense in the Land of Israel. The Jews living here were regarded as weak and helpless. They were considered fair targets by Bedouin Arabs and other Muslims who did not care for them. The Jews, who had come in peace, were unprepared for these attacks and were seen as a “soft” target by the hardened Arabs. The Arabs did not respect weakness and referred to the Jews as walid el mita, “the child of death,” someone too weak to deserve life. Jewish blood was considered cheap. The Jews lived in their own quarters, scared and at the mercy of others. Often, they hired Arabs to protect them.
The Jews immigrating to Israel from around the world, coming home to their ancestral homeland, found this situation shocking, intolerable, and unacceptable. These Jews were not the same proud warriors of two thousand years earlier; the years of exile took their toll. They began to “adjust” to the Middle East. In time, the warrior spirit would burst forth again.
In 1903, the Maccabi Union was formed to teach Jews physical fitness and strength. They wanted to end the era of walid el mita. They soon began training with sticks (early KAPAP) but the goal was rifles, live weapons. In 1907, a group was formed called Hashomer Hatzair (The Guard), with the purpose of defending Jewish settlements. From this point is a constant exploration and evolution of hand-to-hand self-defense techniques and strategies. This process continues to this day. In 1919, Ze’ev Jabotinsky founded the Haganah (Defense), for the purpose of defending Jews against the increasing Arab attacks.
Jabotinsky was one of the great Jewish leaders of the 20th century. He foresaw doom for European Jewry and urged them to relocate to the Land of Israel (aliya, ascension). He founded the Betar youth movement and the Herut (freedom) political party. Future prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir were among his disciples.
Jabotinsky, or Jabo as he was known by the Jewish masses, was not only a great leader and speaker, he was also a writer and poet. He wrote in many languages; novels, poems, and textbooks on the Hebrew language. His works inspired his generation and those that followed. Jabotinsky formed the Zion Mule Corps as part of the British army in World War One, and he himself enlisted as a private.
While Jabotinsky was the philosophical force behind Jewish military revival, as well as an active participant, others were the hands-on Krav Maga instructors. Various instructors were instrumental in developing what would become known as KAPAP and eventually Krav Maga. In January 1941, a self-defense course took place. The chief instructors were Maishel Horowitz, Menashe Harel, Gershon Kofler, and Yitzhak Shtibel. The course marked a key point in the organized development of Israeli self-defense.
In Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, Imi Lichtenfeld, an expert in boxing and wrestling, together with other Jews, formed a Jewish self-defense group. He was influenced by his father, Shmuel, a detective and defensive tactics instructor with the local police force. Shmuel Lichtenfeld was known as a tough officer with a reputation for arresting the most violent criminals. Young Imi grew up in a tough area and had to deal with Fascist thugs, violent gangs, and anti-Semites. On the street, he learned to distinguish between sporting techniques and real-life self-defense.
When Europe became unbearable for Jews, Imi left. He eventually ended up in the Land of Israel in 1942, then controlled by the British. Israeli self-defense was already well in the process of development. As a member of the Haganah, he joined this ongoing process and made significant contributions.
Lichtenfeld’s talents were noticed and he was assigned to join the unarmed combat instructors’ team. Eventually, he became a KAPAP instructor and was among those who trained the Palmach and Palyam. He is credited with a shifting of emphasis from use of the stick to the greater incorporation of jujitsu. When Israel became a state in 1948, all the pre-state militias joined together to form the IDF. Imi was recruited into the staff of the IDF physical training school where he was one of eleven KAPAP instructors.
Krav Maga includes techniques from judo, jujitsu, karate, western boxing, and elements of wrestling. With the establishment of the State of Israel, Krav Maga was adopted as the official fighting style of the IDF and the Israel Police Force.
In 1964, Lichtenfeld retired from the IDF and opened a private Krav Maga club. He became the first to offer Krav Maga to civilians, although nearly all Israeli civilians serve in the military and have some Krav Maga training. His fame came from his initiation of the development of civilian Krav Maga. This is a process still going on today.
Krav Maga is free flowing; all styles of punching, kicking, chokes, and take-downs are employed with the aim of neutralizing the enemy in the shortest amount of time possible. Unlike competitive martial arts, where limits are placed on the type of techniques used or the areas targeted, Krav Maga has no limitations. Groin shots, eyes, throat, face, are all fair game. Therefore, Krav Maga does not hold competitions and does not seek to be represented in the Olympics. The danger to the participants would simply be too great.
Krav Maga knife defense
Krav Maga is designed for self-defense, combat, and worst-case scenarios. A major part of the training involves the ability to handle such stressful situations, both physically and mentally. The style is easy to learn and apply. Krav Maga chooses simple movements that are natural to the body, based on instincts that are already established within us.
A unique aspect of Krav Maga is the emphasis on aggressiveness, sticking to the goal, even when it is hard, even when you feel you have nothing left, and a no compromising attitude toward the enemy. Our goal is to neutralize the enemy; the specific technique does not matter.
Krav Maga is taught to all units of the IDF; the amount depends upon the unit. As such, nearly everyone in Israel has some Krav Maga training. Depending on the unit, knife and gun disarms are also taught. All training involves strict discipline, aggressiveness, and a warrior mindset.
If there is a quality you sense right away when dealing with Israelis, it is attitude and confidence. They know they are the best. You can see it in the way they walk, talk, and interact. In a real fight, attitude makes all the difference.
I was at the dojo looking for a training partner and spotted Yossi. I soon discovered he was a member of an elite police unit that had an excellent track record for apprehending dangerous terrorists. I figured he must be some sort of real-life Rambo, a deadly fighting machine. We squared off for a kickboxing match…well, clearly this was not his forte. We moved to freestyle, then wrestling—still no magic fighting powers. Finally, I asked him, “How do you manage to capture so many wanted terrorists? What is your fighting secret?”
He told me, “Our attitude and spirit. We barge into a wanted terrorist’s home in the middle of the night—catch him unsuspecting in his pajamas while we are wearing fierce-looking uniforms. We come in kicking and shouting with a feeling of invincibility and they usually give in without a fight.” In a word: attitude.
In the 1948 War of Independence, Israel did not have many weapons. They bought what they could and improvised the rest. A fellow named David invented a small canon; it became known as the Davidka or “Little David.” It proved to be a failure, and a success. The weapon had a lot of attitude; it created a large boom and a lot of smoke, but very little gunpowder. It caused no real damage. However, the Arabs feared this weapon, believing it to be a powerful new invention. As such, it helped spread panic among the Arab troops and played a key role in the war. The Davidka symbolizes the attitude of the Israeli fighters—small, but gutsy. Today, it is on display in central Jerusalem as a reminder of the bitter battle for freedom. Carved on the stone in the background is the beginning of a biblical verse, “And I shall protect and defend this city.”
The “Davidka” – a key weapon in the defense of Jerusalem,
1948
Elisha is a slightly built teenager serving in an elite commando unit. He completed a basic course in Israeli fighting and feels invincible. Often while walking, he will spot a large, muscular fellow and say, “I can take him, easily.” He is not very strong and does not have much martial arts training. So what is his secret? He has been trained to charge in without fear or hesitation and take the bull by the horns. His few basic techniques work well because they are applied without the slightest hint of hesitation. He moves with total confidence. He is relentless in his attack and does not let up until it is over.
I have seen wimpy, skinny teenagers transformed into heroic warriors. A major factor in Israeli combat self-defense is toughness. I was talking to a student of mine, now serving in an elite unit. He said they had already had a few Krav Maga sessions. “What techniques have you learned?” I asked him.
“None. What we do is lots of push-ups, running, pull-ups, more push-ups, no rest.” What does this have to do with self-defense, you might ask? This has everything to do with real-life self-defense, because if you are too tired and beaten to execute the technique it is of absolutely no use to you. Israeli self-defense first trains the body, the mind, and the spirit, to be those of a warrior. The actual techniques will come later. It is the person more than the technique that matters.
Time and again, the soldiers stressed to me that self-defense in the IDF focuses on mental and physical toughness rather than individual techniques. They describe their training—doing push-ups on their knuckles and holding the position without moving for a very long time, being attacked by thirty soldiers and not allowing yourself to be taken, enduring heat, hikes, and climbs, and then working the heavy bag.
This reminds me of the training I did in Kyokushin karate and Thai boxing. These methods of developing mental and physical toughness have largely disappeared from the commercial martial arts world. As one high-ranking Japanese master said to me privately, “The modern American students won’t stand for it. We have to compete with the kick box-aerobics classes at the local health club.”
I spoke with a student of mine currently serving in an elite combat unit. He was not at liberty to discuss his unit’s work in the current conflict, but I asked him if his training adequately prepared him for war. He said it was impossible to foresee every circumstance and prepare for every combat scenario, but the mental and physical attributes that he developed in his training did properly prepare him and served him well during the conflict. In terms of the specific scenarios—there were surprises, but in terms of the individual soldier in combat, he was fully able to adjust, adapt, improvise, and accomplish his objectives.
You can never have a ready technique for every imaginable situation, you can never be sure what to expect, but you can train your mind and body to be able to respond as a warrior. You can train yourself, you the individual, to be able to cope with any situation that comes your way. I have heard this very same message from top martial artists—it is not the specific style or technique that is crucial, but the trained warrior, the individual combatant; it is his attributes, his intensity, and his spirit, that ultimately makes the difference.
Are some people natural heroes? Are some people naturally brave? I do not believe so. In Krav Maga we do not believe so. For if we did, we might cease to exist as an independent people. Anyone can be trained to be a hero. Anyone can be trained to cope with pain, loss, suffering and anxiety. It all involves a decision, or a mental switch.
In precarious situations, we humans feel fear. That fear drives some people to incredible acts of heroism and bravery while others freeze or lose control. The difference lies in our ability to control fear. In Krav Maga, we work on gaining that control. Controlling fear is a learned skill just like any other. No one is born knowing how to ride a bicycle or drive a car; we learn it. Yet some people never learn how to drive a car.
In our training, we learn to familiarize ourselves with dangerous, fear provoking, situations. Having someone come at you in the middle of the night with a real sharpened edged weapon is scary, to say the least. So we begin with a small rubber training knife. In the comfort of our training hall, under the guidance of a trusted teacher, a friend will approach you slowly with the training knife, simulating a real attack.
I have found that some adults are totally incapable of dealing even with rubber replica training knives or guns. Just the sight of them freaks them out. They say they want to learn self-defense, they want to control fear, but even the sight of such “toy weapons” makes them so uncomfortable that I must put the offending weapons away.
And yet, in rural Arizona, I have been in homes where real guns were lying around the living room and small children were not afraid; they were familiar with the weapons, they had learned to shoot them and they knew how to handle them.
Anything can be dangerous—a small cat, protruding stone on the sidewalk, kitchen utensil, lighter, bathtub, electric socket. All of these have caused serious damage to people I know, and yet we are generally not afraid of them. Fear is a product of our minds. We can all learn to handle fear better. Parents who bring their young children to me for training understand this. A frightened little child, after a few months of training, becomes a confident young adult. They have to, for in a few years they will be soldiers.
Behavior is learned. We cannot erase the fear mechanism, we do not want to, it is a God-given survival mechanism, but we can learn to channel it much more effectively. Neuroscientist, Dr. Joseph LeDoux, says with regard to fear, “Whether it proves to be one of your best survival tools or your downfall depends on your ability to control it. An effective survivor is someone who can shut off the fear alarm clanging in his head and channel the resulting motivation into purposeful action that reduces the danger.”
During our full contact fighting sometimes the pain is hard to handle. Some fighters absorb so much pain that it is beyond pain. One said, “I made a switch in my head and turned off the pain.” He was able to finish the fight successfully. He just “put his body someplace else.” I have been told by survivors of abuse and torture that they have done exactly that, they managed to “put their bodies” someplace else and shut off the pain.
What is true for an individual is also true for a nation. Do some nations have tough genes? Are some nations better at survival? Again, this is a learned trait. The nation of Israel has survived close to two thousand years of exile, filled with every sort of suffering known to man, culminating in the Holocaust. People who lost their entire families came to Israel, started new lives, fought off endless Arab attacks, and built a new, thriving, state, one of the world leaders in hi-tech industries. Clearly we know something about shutting off the fear alarm, shutting out the pain, and channeling our energy into purposeful action.
In Krav Maga, we train our minds to be able to handle the shock of a terrorist attack, the sound of a gun going off, the sight of blood, and the feeling of having our body pounded with blows. Being able to shut off the alarm in your head, the panic button, remain calm and focused, is essential whether you are leading elite troops into Lebanon or trying to survive a traumatic situation.
I knew my belt test would be serious. Krav Maga expert, Itay Gil, did not give away belts for free. He would always say to me, “You and I are friends; friends can give each other many things, but not a belt. A belt must be earned.”
I trained many hours a week in Krav Maga, kickboxing, judo, knife, gun, and stick defense. In addition, I worked to improve my fitness by running, sprinting up hills, jumping rope, and push-ups. The test for brown belt would include two hours of technique followed by thirty full contact fights. I knew I had to be ready. Before the fighting segment of the test, my teacher called me over. “Some of your techniques were a bit shaky, I don’t know if I can pass you. You will have to prove yourself during the fights. I want to see you fight like a tiger.”
“Oh God,” I thought, “this is going to be even harder than I expected.” The fights began. The first two guys came at me like they had a personal issue with me. The blows and throws came nonstop, relentlessly, without mercy. After four minutes, I felt like I had nothing left, but I still had to complete twenty-six more fights.
Oscar landed a back-spinning heel kick on my forehead; Ildiko hammered away at my ribs. With ten minutes to go, Itay was getting a bit worried. He turned to Eran who was sitting next to him and said, “Do you think Moshe is going to make it?”
The answer was, “No, he’s wiped out. He’s out of gas.”
Itay came up to me as I was fighting and started breathing down my neck like a drill sergeant: “You are not going to quit, do you hear me!?” I had nothing left but willpower. I could hardly lift my leg anymore to do kicks I had done a thousand times. I relied upon knee kicks, punching, and elbow strikes, simple gross motor moves. The last ten minutes were hell: I no longer cared about pain; I no longer cared whether I passed the test. Only one thing kept me going: I am not going to let down my teacher; I am not going to let myself down.
Itay announced, “Five more seconds,” but those five seconds seemed to go in slow motion, like they would never end. And then, the test was over. I was finally able to collapse to the floor. Two friends picked me up and put my head in the sink. What a relief.
One question kept floating through my head: Why was Itay making it so difficult? Why did I have to suffer so much? After the test, he answered that question, without my having to even ask him. “I was not testing your ability to fight. I was testing your desire to live.”
That is Krav Maga—not a tournament, not a sport, but survival. He was training me to get the beating of my life and still to hold on to life with strength that can only come from within. This is a lesson for life. I have spoken with many survivors of the Holocaust and of natural disasters; all said the same thing, “What kept me going was my desire to live.”
Our belt tests are hard. For yellow belt, we require fifteen minutes of full contact, nonstop fighting. With each belt the requirements increase, and for black belt a candidate must fight forty minutes against a series of rested fighters. Even our little kids, eight or nine years old, will fight at least ten minutes of full contact fighting, most often with some tears along the way.
I watch an eight-year-old boy get kicked in the stomach and the tears start streaming down his cheeks. “Do you want to quit?” I ask him, “Do you want to stop? Are you going to give in to the pain? Are you going to fail the test and not get your belt?” No one has ever stopped; they have all gone the distance. They all chose to keep going, with the pain, with the tears.
When the test is over, as I award them their belt and diploma, I have them sit down for a short talk. They are sitting there drenched in sweat, eyes red from tears, and I tell them, “There is only one reason why I can stand here and test you. That is because I have done all this before you. Every blow that you feel, I have felt as well. I feel your pain as my own. I too have been hit hard, from head to toe. Why do you have to go through this?”
I turn to the proud, but somewhat horrified, parents, “Why do I make the kids go through this? Because we will all be hit in life—hopefully not physically, hopefully they will never face a mugger, hopefully no one will ever raise a hand against any of you, but life will. We all get hit.” I turn to the kids, “You will apply to a college or a job and not be accepted. You will ask a girl out and be rejected. You might be fired from your job, you might get divorced, you might face any number of hardships. Life will try to beat you down and you must be strong. I want you to remember this test and the words that I tell you. Remember that you were hit, and you kept going. Remember when you were knocked down, and you got up again and you hit back. Our rabbis tell us that a man may fall down, that is pretty much a given, but the question is—can he get up again? You are still young; you have much ahead of you. I want this lesson to stick with you. Think of how strong you are today. Remember this strength; know how to call it up when you need it.”
These words may seem harsh; shouldn’t we protect the young ones? Shouldn’t we fight their battles for them? In the film, “The Lion King,” the young cub gets into trouble and his dad is mad at him. When all is well again, the cub says to his father, the powerful lion king, “So, are we good Dad?”
“Sure,” the father says, “we are good.”
“And will you always be there for me?” the young cub asks his dad.
No father can promise this, the cub is too young to understand that no living creature will always be there, no dad can promise this. So the older lion says, “No, but I will always watch over you” (Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts, The Lion King, directed by Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff, Walt Disney Pictures, Burbank, 1994).
As adults, we cannot always promise to be there, all we can do is train the next generation to have warrior spirit, warrior values, to “stand up and fight your own battles,” to be strong enough to face whatever our enemies, or life’s own challenges, may dish out.
Israeli youth are better able to cope with challenges; they do not crumble in the face of adversity. From a young age, we know we are born to fight, we have no choice. There is no peace; there is no peace on the horizon; it is a fool’s illusion. We will all be soldiers, we will all serve, and we have to have warrior spirit. In Israel, we have two common expressions, “We never promised you a rose garden.” and “Tough in training, easy in combat.” No one promises us an easy, cozy life, and we better know it from the start. Warrior nations must know how to stand up to adversity, and to thrive.
“The unknown scares the hell out of us.” This statement explains a great deal of human behavior, or lack thereof. Much human action, whether in business, relationships, or combat, does not take place—it does not take place because we fear the unknown more than almost anything else.
We admire those who take action, those who become heroes. We describe them as “fearless,” and “brave.” We place them above the ordinary man and think of them as supernatural in some way. Certainly a common person could not have taken such action. But all of this is not true, and most “heroes” do not see themselves as such. They are embarrassed to be called heroes and usually say, “Anybody in my situation would have done that.” Of course, most people do not “do that.” Why? Fear of the unknown, fear of other people’s reactions.
Effective combat training, in the IDF, in Krav Maga, or in any top military, involves scenario training. Like actors, we set up props and act out possible scenarios. We build houses, fake towns, use cars, obstacles, and even dummies to create the kind of situation we might encounter in real life combat. To the novice this is great fun; to the expert it is mind/body training. Research has shown that the mind cannot detect the difference between scenario training and real life experience. Survivors of the tsunami in Thailand intuitively acted like the superheroes they saw in movies. Studies showed that people who had watched many disaster films, and had become intensely involved in the movies, reacted as if they had experienced this before. Their mind reacted as if, “been there, done that, I know how to handle this situation, no problem.” The lesson is clear; the mind can be fooled into thinking it has real life experience and this “experience” will help if and when a real situation arises.
Israel has an unusually high number of ordinary heroes; citizens who risked their lives to neutralize terrorists and save lives. They have been there, done that in their military combat training. Their fear of “the unknown” is reduced and they are able to act in a more courageous manner. Add to that a value system where each individual is responsible for the other, where we feel we are in a common battle against an evil enemy, and you have the making of many everyday heroes who are just “doing what is expected of me, anybody would have done it.”
In 1981, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor that was clearly aimed at producing weapons to be used against Israel. This preemptive strike is typical of the Israeli attitude. The same strategy was used successfully at the outset of the 1967 Six Day War. On the morning of June 5, 1967, amid boasts of the Arab world that the tiny State of Israel was about to be wiped off the map, the planes of the Israeli air force under the command of General Hod, took off. Before the dust settled, three hundred nine of the three hundred forty aircraft in the Egyptian air force were destroyed on the ground. Within a day, a similar fate befell the Jordanian air force. The Syrian and Iraqi air forces suffered the same, and within six days the entire Arab world had been soundly defeated. And on the seventh day the army of Israel rested.
Attitude + intensity + toughness = preemptive strikes. A key principle of Israeli self-defense is to not wait to see how things turn out; take proactive action and make sure things turn out right.
What is Krav Maga thinking? Basically, it is Israeli thinking.
In a book about the Arab hijackings of September 1970, one of the non-Israeli passengers on the hijacked TWA flight wrote, “What could we do? The terrorists were armed. We had no choice but to submit” (David Raab, Terror in Black September, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007). Around the same time, another unit of Arab terrorists attempted to hijack an EL AL flight. They did not succeed. Why? Because Israelis do not say “What could we do?”, they ask “What shall we do? What will we do about this problem?” Indeed, it was original thinking that prevented the hijacking of EL AL, despite heavily armed terrorists.
We learn to think on our feet, on the ground and in the air, we learn to improvise. In the IDF, a certain attitude develops. Each soldier is trained to be able to take over in the event that the commander can no longer function. Each soldier is taught how to modify plans and adapt to new circumstances. This training was used in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—when the invading Egyptian forces ran into trouble and got stuck—the Israeli forces adapted, adjusted, improvised, and created new plans and strategies. They had learned not to follow a textbook, but to think “outside the box.”
Krav Maga thinking is also very confrontational. The philosophy is not to avoid the enemy, hoping he will go away, but to confront and engage the enemy. Deal with your problem now, otherwise you will have a greater problem to deal with later. Both men and women are trained this way. Israeli women are known as somewhat aggressive—hard not to be when you have been trained by the IDF in counterterrorism. This kind of thinking can help you in business and in any transaction. “No” is not the end of the discussion, it is just the beginning.
The crux of the Krav Maga practitioner’s thinking is, “My situation is never hopeless, there is always a way out, no matter what the situation, I will still have options.” We have learned this from our history. This behavior is part of our culture. We begin to learn it as children; we see how the adults behave. We learn to see heroic, selfless behavior as the norm. Teenagers lead demonstrations, block roads to protest dangerous political moves instigated by outside pressure, and build new settlements on hilltops.
In the training hall, a technique is performed in an ideal environment—no obstacles in the way, there is good lighting, and the practitioner is wearing comfortable clothing. The attacker is alone without backup, there are no surprise attacks, it is not raining, the terrain is smooth, and the practitioner is rested. Some modern facilities boast air conditioned training halls, ample space, and a perfectly clean environment.
In reality, things can be very different and all these factors must be taken into account. Whether by design or accident, the Jerusalem Krav Maga training center where I paid my dues and moved up the ranks, was a no-frills operation. It was far from a country club environment and was geared toward the unspoiled, serious practitioner. Hot and dusty in summer and cold in winter, you had to learn to mentally detach yourself from the environmental factors. Those who focused on their discomfort could not train properly and did not last long. One must learn to make a mental switch and ignore the heat or cold, or the other person’s sweat dripping on you.
In the IDF Krav Maga program, much training is done outside in the hot sun, on bumpy terrain, and against multiple attackers. Training is done in military uniforms with heavy shoes, while fatigued. One must assume that in battle a soldier will not have optimal conditions and will not be well-rested. This is reality.
The moves must be the kind that you can easily use no matter how stressful the situation or how tired you are. Bruce Lee said, “I’d rather have ten moves that work for me than one hundred that work against me.” The moves must work when you are fatigued and under intense pressure—hungry or thirsty, injured or bleeding, and wearing heavy military equipment.
Studies show that under stress or while fatigued, even experienced fighters cannot effectively perform complex fine motor skills. Certainly those who do not train on a regular basis have difficulty remembering techniques. The only techniques that one can count on are the simple gross motor moves.
Guns can be very intimidating. The best way to defend against a weapon is to become thoroughly familiar with it. You must not go into shock when you see a gun; the sight, sounds (e.g., cocking the weapon) and smells of guns should become familiar so that they do not cause you to panic or freeze. A gun is often used to intimidate. If you can desensitize yourself to guns, you will be more relaxed in their presence. Of course, you must also respect the gun and be fully aware of the danger.
Kindergarten children see guns and they will continue to see them throughout their lives. Armed escorts accompany them on school field trips. In the army, they will become intimate with many weapons; fire them, take them apart, clean them, and reassemble them. They will sleep with them, shower with them, they will never be apart. (Otherwise they will end up in military prison.) Knowing how the weapon works and how it is used takes away the mystery and makes it easier to defend against the weapon. If a shot should go off, this is a sound they have heard before and they will not go into shock.
In Israel, many civilians carry guns. With this comes the responsibility of knowing the laws pertaining to the use of guns. For example, if you are angry with someone and want to give him a little scare by reaching toward your gun—that is considered a crime. Reaching for your gun is considered the same threat as pulling it out. Knowing this law, one understands that if an assailant even begins to reach for his weapon—this is the time to act! The threat begins with his reaching for the weapon and your response should begin there as well.
In a combat situation, every aspect of the environment must be taken into account, including the number of troops you and your enemy possess. No man is a one-man army. Every soldier knows that a time may come when his life will depend on his buddies. No soldier fights alone; your life depends on the group effort—you have to know that you can count on them, all for one and one for all.
In Israel, this attitude permeates civilian life as well. In a street self-defense situation, casual bystanders can affect the outcome of the situation. Knowing that most Israeli civilians are trained soldiers changes our set of expectations. We can expect a warrior’s response, a warrior’s courage, and a warrior’s combat knowledge and ability. We have a saying, “All of Israel is responsible for one another.” We operate on the assumption that others will join the effort. The captain of the EL AL flight, facing a terrorist threat, knew that as soon as he took action, others would follow. The bus driver knew that when he jumped the terrorist, others would join him. Perhaps there is no greater example of a fighting nation than this unwritten understanding that in times of trouble, everyone can count on everyone else.
Israeli soldiers, Lebanon, 2007
No contradiction here—as much as we believe in, and train by “counting on the group,” we also believe that ultimately you are responsible for your own life. As Itay Gil wrote, “Do not count on others to come to your aid. Assume you are facing imminent death—alone” (Itay Gil and Dan Baron, The Citizen’s Guide to Stopping Suicide Attackers). Or, as another Krav Maga instructor said, “If you will not defend yourself—you will die.” Counting on others does not take the burden off of you, you must still take action.
In many dangerous self-defense situations such as knife and gun threats or airline hijackings, common wisdom has been to cooperate. Israeli self-defense operates with a different set of assumptions; never cooperate. Like a prisoner of war sworn to try to escape, we wait for the right moment. Our bitter history has taught us not to trust the promises of our tormentors, or our friends for that matter. In the Warsaw ghetto of Poland, the Nazis promised bread and jam to those who boarded the trains for “relocation” or “resettlement.” Many, weakened by years of starvation, believed them. They ended up in gas chambers. A small group realized it was better to resist. Better to die fighting than to go like sheep to the slaughter. Our operating principle is, better to resist than to leave your life in the hands of your assailant. Your chances will only get worse if you wait.
A fifteen-year-old Israeli girl was on her way to the mall when she was grabbed by a youth on drugs. She was in a crowded area, yet cooperated with her assailant and went with him to a quiet, secluded field. There, she was raped and murdered. Human nature is to believe the kind promises of others; cooperate and no one will get hurt. We no longer believe this. Resist now and hope for the best. Never allow yourself to be relocated; it can only benefit your assailant.
Techniques – what she could have done…
The first thing she could have done was make a commotion. In a society like Israel, such a commotion would not be ignored. Within shouting distance, she would have found police officers, off-duty soldiers, and plenty of combat trained Israelis willing to come to the rescue.
When grabbed, she could have responded with a knee kick, pointing her bony kneecap at the assailant’s groin or inner thigh. Then, she could have used that window of opportunity to do a full body movement and release herself from his grip. She should have run for safety. Do not ever stick around to “finish him off.” Leave that to the police or someone properly trained.
To fight when you are tired and have absorbed a few blows is very challenging, to say the least. For our black belt test, we fight forty one-minute fights against well-rested opponents. The point is not to see if you can fight, but to see how you fight when you are out of gas, fatigued. Krav Maga focuses on what you can do when you are fatigued, not when you are well-rested. We only trust techniques you can do when you are tired, fatigued, having been up all night and just finished hiking up a mountain.
One of our security guard students had the nickname, “The Maniac.” His friends told me the local Jerusalem Arabs gave him this title. He does not know that many techniques, but when he uses them, he unleashes such aggression that he is feared more than a grand master. He has confidence in his few techniques, he does not let fear enter his mind, and failure is not a possibility. He has never been beaten on the street.
Aggressiveness training is a major part of Krav Maga. After each training session, the elite security guards of Jerusalem are graded in three categories; aggressiveness, technique, and discipline. Aggressiveness means having the discipline to put the technique into action, with full conviction and determination, without hesitation, doubt, or fear.
Another one of my security guard students was approached by three Arabs while on his way to his shift. They surrounded him and started pushing him around. He grabbed his spare magazine from his handgun and used the sharp edge as a slashing weapon. He cut one of the assailants on the cheek. When the assailant realized he had been cut, he panicked and ran. His friends joined him and fled.
To paraphrase an old song, “If you don’t have the weapon you want, use the weapon you have.” Make use of whatever you have available and turn it into a weapon of self-defense. Nearly anything can be used as a weapon, in the hands of a creative person.
In our Krav Maga training, we often have drills involving multiple attackers or mob scenes. The idea is to train the fighter to stay focused on his survival despite the many obstacles and distractions around him.
In one drill, a soldier will be punching a shield held by another soldier while a bunch of other soldiers punch, kick, and push him. The soldier doing the drill must remain focused on the task at hand and not let the pain distract him.
One of the first concepts I learned in Krav Maga was the concept of “no pain.” The idea is that during a fight, a very stressful situation, we are trained not to think about the pain, not to let the pain “live” this moment. We put ourselves outside our bodies for the moment and deal with the task at hand: survival. We do not allow the pain to affect us. Later, there will be plenty of time to deal with that, but not during a fight for survival. This concept is difficult to explain in writing, but when you are in that situation, you just make a decision to not let the pain register. It works.
Many training programs operate in a sort of vacuum, without taking the sociology of the people into account. In Israel, the training is based on reality. Techniques and training are modified as we learn lessons in the “field.”
For example, in some societies, people train a great deal with knives and how to defend against knives. They ask why we do not learn and teach more of those knife techniques. In Israel, the average knife attacker is not well-trained; he is probably just some angry terrorist who grabbed a kitchen knife. Even if he is a master knife fighter, we will not fight knives with knives. Even if the terrorist stabs one person, he will soon be shot dead by some Israeli standing nearby. He will not survive the encounter. We focus on the gun training. That is the reality of our society. There is always someone nearby with a gun.
When I teach Krav Maga to new students, I often have a smaller person face a larger and stronger aggressor. I also have the opponent make life a little difficult for them. I tell them this is reality. Now, you can go to the gym, work out for a couple of years, build muscle, and improve stamina, and only then be able to contend with such an attacker, or you can learn to deal with reality right now.
The reality is that most people do not have that kind of time to train and the reality is that no matter how much you work out there will always be someone bigger and stronger than you. In Krav Maga, we say you must learn to deal with this fact and we must train people to overcome stronger and larger opponents. Too many styles spend years teaching techniques that have little or no chance of ever working in a real life situation. If it is not going to work—we might as well find out now so we can adjust it.
I was teaching a gun disarm technique that involved grabbing the assailant’s wrist. A young, post-army Israeli woman called me over for some assistance; she was having difficulty performing the technique. I noticed the problem right away—her left arm was made of plastic. She was wearing a three-quarter length sleeve, so I could not tell where her natural arm ended and the artificial limb began, but I acted as if this was par for the course. I instantly adjusted the technique to accommodate her special needs and the technique worked.
She had a smile on her face that would not go away, her optimism would not fade. Her strength gave me courage. I wanted to say something, but I could not, so I just treated her like everyone else. That is what she wanted, to be treated like everyone else. Now, when I teach that gun disarm I always take into account the possibility that some people have an artificial arm. I can still picture her warm smile, a smile that said, “I cannot be defeated.”
Another reality we must deal with is the limitations of the physical environment. Too many schools train in “ideal environments.” We do not, we train in environments that mirror reality. Fighting in confined quarters is just one of the special aspects of Krav Maga.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. And yet, the vast majority of martial arts schools I have been to, train as if that was the case. They teach techniques without taking any outside factors into account. It is as if you can choose the time and place to be attacked, and it will exactly match the way you trained at your local karate school. If you are training for sports or competition, then that is the case—your tournament setting will exactly match your training setting. However, if you are training for personal survival, you had better rethink your training.
The sad and cruel truth is you can be attacked anywhere. You can be attacked on the stairway, which completely eliminates all your fancy kicking techniques. You can be attacked in the snow by a guy wearing a heavy snowsuit, which completely eliminates your jujitsu wrist locks. You can be attacked on a small boat, in an elevator, in the bathroom, on the beach, in the mud. None of this will be at all similar to the training you did at your karate or judo school. To defend yourself, you need to get real.
Krav Maga experts address all these issues, and they should know—many have “been there, done that.” In the Jerusalem training center, there is a structure set up like a house or an apartment. Some areas are too small for kicks; some areas have blind spots. Suddenly, you wake up to a whole new approach to self-defense. Unlike traditional kata or point sparring, you cannot know in advance what will happen; you just have to train and gain experience.
What makes military Krav Maga training different from civilian Krav Maga training? The first difference is the time factor. Although all Krav Maga training is designed to allow students to gain maximum self-defense proficiency in the least amount of time, in the military this is even more so. With a civilian, both the time frame and the danger factor are broader.
The civilian fears danger, but he is not planning on entering a dangerous area at any specific time; he just wants to be prepared in general. As such, he does not have a specific time when he must be “combat ready.” The soldier, on the other hand, does have a specific date when he will be “shipped out” to Lebanon or Iraq or some other hellhole. The civilian wants to learn as much as possible as soon as possible, but he still has flexibility—he does not have to do it all in three weeks or five weeks. If it takes a little longer, that is OK. With the soldier, he only has those three or five weeks; after that he will be put back on active duty or move on to some other aspect of training.
The second difference is “captive audience.” With any commercial school, half the job is keeping students/clients motivated. If they are bored they will walk away. To keep them interested you must keep the program “interesting.” This often can mean not spending enough time on any given technique. Many people become impatient, “What, this again!” An instructor often finds himself needing to introduce new techniques too soon in order to keep his clients entertained; otherwise they might walk away, and in that case they will learn nothing. With the military, you have a captive audience. They have to be there or else they will be washing the latrines. They are yours until you are finished with them. You do not have to make it interesting. You are able to drill them again and again on the basics until they get it right.
Israeli soldiers learn Krav Maga during their mandatory military service. The standing joke is, “So what did you learn today in Krav Maga?” The answer, “push-ups.” The military Krav Maga training will focus on a few basic techniques, but the soldier will learn how to do them when he is tired, fatigued, worn out, and ready to collapse. He will run several miles and then have to pound the heavy bag. He will do push-ups and then face a group of soldiers who will attack him; he will hit a punching shield while other soldiers are hitting him. He will repeat this again and again. He will not forget this training and he will learn to function in the worst possible scenarios. This is military Krav Maga, and it works. Talk to any IDF soldier, even a Krav Maga instructor; ask him how much Krav Maga he knows. Most will say, “Oh, I only know the basics.” It is the basics that will save you in combat.
We do not realize how things affect us. We think we do, but we really do not. Small annoyances add up to severe problems that eventually explode in our faces. Little things that we think will not affect us in a moment of truth—in fact do. We simply do not have a clue. That is what military Krav Maga training is all about. You repeat something again and again and again. You keep going when you think you simply cannot go on any further. You keep fighting when you so badly want to just give in. We will not let you give in. We insist: You will fight until you are dead. You will fight to the end. This is your best chance at survival. We learned this from experience.
In training, many people think they can take shortcuts. “Yeah, I got the idea; let’s move on.” These shortcuts can get you killed. It is the endless repetition that embeds the technique in your head, so that when you are dead tired, bruised, and beaten—you can still keep fighting. You have just got to keep on going.
So we do our push-ups until our muscles ache and our knuckles bleed. We ignore the pain; we rise above it. We fight back until we have no more gas left, and then we dig deep inside and find that extra reserve, that still small voice that says, “Never give up.”
Krav Maga draws its striking techniques from the most powerful systems in the world and then adapts them for optimal street effectiveness, Israeli style.
Principles
• Every superfluous movement is eliminated. In a real situation every second counts.
• Unlike a sports fight, or grudge match, there is no place for “set ups” or strategy. Everything must be instant, this is not a game.
• Avoid all fancy moves.
• Do not turn your back on the opponent.
• Keep your feet solidly on the ground, no jumping or spinning movements.
• Strike from where you are; there is no set-up time.
• Each strike should deliver maximum power; nonetheless we train with combination strikes. We do not rely on the old Japanese saying, “One strike one kill.” We rely on “Take no chances.” We use penetrating blows that bring the pain deep into the muscle causing shock to the system.
• Combine hand and foot techniques for maximum effectiveness; one technique leads to the next.
• Use body momentum, not body strength, to generate quick, effective bursts of force. Use the hips, not the torso.
• Do not stop until the threat is neutralized; knocked out, disarmed, tied up and handcuffed, or…
Bag Work
Unlike traditional karate, we do not do “air punching.” We do our striking techniques on pads or on the heavy bag. If you are hitting the heavy bag there is a simple way to gauge if you are doing it correctly. If the bag is swinging wildly—you are only pushing the bag, but the blow lacks punishing power. An effective, powerful strike enters the bag and “folds” it a bit, but does not cause swinging. Working with a bag allows you to strike with full power without hurting your joints.
The Strikes
• Punches – we take our punches from the most effective punching style; western boxing. We adapt the approach because unlike boxing we use kicking as well and in the street we must also protect against non-boxing techniques.
• Front kick, side kick – similar to karate.
• Low kick, roundhouse kicks – Muay Thai.
• Knee kicks, elbow strikes – Muay Thai.
Each strike is the most powerful of its kind. The program “Fight Science” scientifically examined every kick and punch and proved that these were the most powerful strikes. The western boxing punch is more powerful than the kung fu, karate, Muay Thai, or Taekwondo punch. Similarly, the Thai low kick is more powerful than any similar karate or Taekwondo style kick. It pleased me that IKI Krav had “guessed” correctly in every case.
Krav Maga incorporates these strikes as part of its gun/knife/stick and hand-to-hand defense. We do not only use them for kickboxing or sport; we use them as part of an effective, innovative survival program. We measure their effectiveness the way people measure guns; by their stopping power. Our goal is survival; all these techniques are a means to an end.
American born Nachshon Waxman was serving in the Israeli army. He had a free weekend and was eager to get home. He did not wait for the bus; he hitchhiked. The vehicle that picked him up was actually driven by terrorists looking for victims. In a tragic saga that gripped the nation, Waxman was held for days by terrorists in horrible conditions. When Israeli soldiers finally located the building and stormed it, he was found murdered.
Israeli agents have found “how to” booklets; training manuals for Arabs on how to take Israeli soldiers or civilians hostage. Hostage taking is very practical; the abducted can be traded for terrorists in Israeli jails. Israel is a nation at war. Our enemy lives not only across our borders, but within our borders as well. Arab towns are adjacent to Israeli towns and some towns are mixed. Arabs are everywhere and one never knows who is a friend and who is a foe. Your gardener might be a terrorist or just a regular guy trying to make a living. Therefore, not only soldiers on the front line have to be concerned about being taken hostage, but anyone, anywhere, at any time can be a victim, as was Nachshon Waxman who was on a street corner in Jerusalem, looking for a fast ride home.
Tragically, many Israelis have “disappeared” over the years. They were picked up by terrorists, taken to Arab villages, and murdered. All Israelis must know how to defend themselves against abductors. It is important to note that not only Jewish Israelis have been victims; Christians, pilgrims, and other tourists have been “accidentally” killed or taken hostage. On the road leading to my town, a promising young Christian clergyman was shot dead one night while driving his car. When the church protested, the terrorists issued an apology. The clergyman was wearing a skullcap, had a beard, and dark skin. It was late in the afternoon and the gunmen did not get a real close look. The Christian clergyman looked Jewish, it cost him his life. Many Christians rely on their gentile features—they fail to realize that in the eyes of some radicals they are perceived as supporters of corrupt secular western imperialism. One cannot be complacent.
Israeli self-defense/Krav Maga trains us to deal with whatever may come our way. Even though you may not be part of a special hostage negotiations team, you might find yourself in a situation where both physical and verbal skills are necessary to diffuse a situation. Many times in our history, the initial negotiations with either terrorists or deranged people have been handled by “ordinary” citizen/soldiers. Most of us will not have to deal with hostage situations; that is usually the responsibility of police, law enforcement, and special units. In Israel, we treat the subject very seriously and it is a part of our Krav Maga gun training courses, and our Krav Maga hand-to-hand combat training as well.
Those in all aspects of law enforcement need to know these techniques, whether you are a prison guard, police officer or military, you never know when you will be called upon to handle a hostage situation. We train for situations where the hostage himself fights back and for situations where a third person is called upon to “negotiate” with the hostage-taker. We begin from a position of strength, which is the key. We do not act aggressively or submissively. We are always in control of our emotions and of the situation. We approach the person or group with confidence. We are willing to talk. When the moment of opportunity comes, we are ready—physically and mentally—to do what needs to be done. Fear and hesitation are never a part of our appearance or attitude. Our attitude, backed up by our training for this situation, gives us an immediate edge. It takes away the hostage-taker’s number one weapon—intimidation.
This approach has proven itself many times throughout history. Weakness invites greater demands by the aggressors; strength makes them back down. In September 1970, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held hundreds of Americans and Europeans hostage, only Israel took a firm stand. The other nations criticized Israel for being intransigent. Israel’s approach proved itself, as gradually the terrorists began releasing the majority of the hostages unconditionally. They blinked first. It was a test of willpower. We train to never show fear, never show weakness or hesitation.
The behavior of the hostages is also an issue of training. The famous Israeli rescue of the hostages held in Entebbe, Africa, illustrates this point. When the Israeli commandos came in, they needed the cooperation of the hostages. Most of the hostages responded in a cool, disciplined way. One passenger did not. When told by the commandos to stay down so the terrorists could be dealt with, the passenger jumped up enthusiastically to greet the rescuers. Tragically, this person was killed. Military discipline and training are also important for the hostages’ state of mind and their ability to endure difficult times.
Nonverbal diffusion can be defined as what Crocodile Dundee did in that classic scene where a young hoodlum wannabe pulls out a pocketknife and tries to rob Dundee and his date. The boy says, “I have a knife!”
Dundee looks at him and says, “That’s not a knife, this is a knife,” as he pulls out a knife five times the size of the sardine-sized knife the young hood is brandishing. That is nonverbal diffusion—even though Dundee was speaking, it was the large knife that did the real talking (Paul Hogan and John Cornell, Crocodile Dundee, directed by Peter Faiman, Rimfire Films, Australia, 1986).
As Westerners, we are taught to believe that everything can be “talked out.” Reasonable people can work out their differences, that “cooler heads” and logic will prevail. Welcome to the Middle East. None of that holds true here.
When an Arab (excuse me for being politically incorrect) in the Old City of Jerusalem pulls out a kitchen knife and starts chasing a group of Jewish or Christian tourists, you cannot reason with him. He is not angry about being dumped by his girlfriend or being fired from his job. You cannot calm him down and tell him to consider his future. He is the product of intensive lifelong indoctrination. From his earliest days, he has been taught to chant, “In blood and fire we will liberate Palestine (sic).” His religion has taught him to hate the infidels. He has seen older siblings and relatives given great honor for killing Jews. He believes that what he is doing is a godly act. And you will not be able to convince him otherwise—certainly not in the next thirty seconds.
So what can you do? Well, the Krav Maga approach is, as one T-shirt reads, “Peace through superior firepower.” It is the same approach as Crocodile Dundee’s. The only way to prevent violence is through the threat of greater violence. Of course, there will be some news reporter, a die-hard liberal, who will report that “unnecessary, excessive violence” was employed against an “adolescent,” and audiences around the world will be sitting in their comfy living rooms, shocked. There will be exceptions. There will be some martial arts guys, some law enforcement types, some former Marines, who will be sitting there with their beers, and say, “Way to go. Those Israelis know what to do.” I know, because I have met them all over America.
My friend and fellow martial artist, retired NYPD detective, Louie Balestrieri, says, “As far as Nonverbal Diffusion is concerned, I believe it works. I believe that SILENCE CLAPS LOUDER THAN THUNDER. Body language has to be a part of it as well. I think that when someone begins to argue and threaten you, they are looking for a reaction and the reaction they want from you is fear. If you show no reaction by staring back at them real hard into their eyes and subtly shifting your body into your ready/fighting stance; you are showing that you are ready for what they may attempt to do. Once again this is with reasonable people. Without being political or pointing my finger at any race or creed in particular, when dealing with the terrorist mindset, you must fight fire with fire. Always carry a big gun to a knife fight. These are people that don’t care. Death is an honor to them.”
When you see the hatred in these terrorists’ eyes, the blind faith and fanaticism, the combination of religious zeal and hate as a result of a lifetime of indoctrination, you know that it is either, “Peace through superior firepower,” (love that T-shirt) or “Peace of the grave.” The choice is yours.
The last principle of Krav Maga and Israeli fighting is the principle that guides our lives; never give up. Giving up is not an option.
It was October 6, 1973. I recall it well. It was Yom Kippur; the Day of Atonement when Jews neither eat nor drink, but spend the day in prayer. That is the day our enemies attacked. We were surprised on two fronts; Syria attacked in the north and Egypt in the south. Iraq and Jordan sent in troops. Smaller contingents and aid arrived from Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan, as well as Arabs living in Israel itself. The attack was overwhelming. Once again we were outnumbered and outgunned. Syrian troops in the north and Egyptian troops in the south overpowered the Israeli positions and were moving deep into our territory. They had advanced Soviet weapons, antitank missiles, rocket propelled grenades, and Sagger missiles. SAM batteries knocked out Israeli aircraft. Five hundred Israeli tanks and forty-nine aircraft were lost in the first few days on the Egyptian front.
On the Syrian front in the north, one hundred eighty Israeli tanks faced off against more than thirteen hundred Syrian tanks. Syrian SAM batteries shot down forty Israeli planes; Israeli population centers were in danger. The situation was grim. Moshe Dayan was badly shaken and talked about the destruction of the third Jewish commonwealth (two Temples had been destroyed; twice before the Jewish state had fallen), casualties were mounting as men fought very bravely, but could not hold out against the overwhelming, Soviet trained, enemy forces. Individual acts of heroism were of crucial importance during those early days, holding back the enemy and allowing time for reinforcements to arrive.
One such case was “Zvika Force.” Lieutenant Zvika Greengold arrived at the northern front, unattached to any unit, he fought off the Syrians with his single tank. For the next twenty hours, Zvika Force, as he came to be known on radio net, fought running battles with Syrian tanks. Sometimes he fought alone and sometimes as part of a larger unit. He was wounded and burned, but stayed in action and repeatedly showed up at critical moments from an unexpected direction to change the course of a skirmish. Such acts of individual bravery held back the enemy. Within fifteen hours, Israeli reservists were already on the front lines.
Chief of Staff Elazar had warned about this attack and wanted to call up the reserves and send the Israeli air force on a preemptive strike. The political leadership of Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir refused; they did not want the world to say that Israel provoked the war, and they were still not convinced that war was imminent. However, the key factor in Prime Minister Golda Meir’s final decision was that Israel might need American assistance later on, and it was imperative that Israel not be blamed for starting the war. After the war, Meir was forced by the Israeli public to resign her post, in shame. And so, Israel found itself in a life threatening situation. It was time for a miracle.
A great hero emerged; the greatest chief of staff in the history of modern Israel—David “Dado” Elazar. He smiled and said, “We will not be defeated. Things will turn out well.” It is said that his optimism was the turning point in the war. Israel had lost many of its warplanes and tanks. It was time for Israel’s special weapon—the reserves.
Up to the front went our gardener, Sadok the Yemenite from Rosh HaAyin, and our neighbor, Eitan the bus driver’s son whose mother still had on her arms the numbers the Nazis had burned into her, and our mailman, and all the able-bodied teachers from my school. These were the people who were going to save us. Air raids sounded at night and we all ran to the nearest bomb shelters, school was interrupted.
Dado took command of the situation, he masterminded the forces in the north and in the south; he showed no fear. Reserve soldiers heroically fought back in a thousand acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, storming the Golan Heights in the north and crossing the Suez Canal in the south. Within three weeks, Israeli forces had not only stopped the enemy’s advance on both fronts, but had moved deep into enemy territory. Israeli troops were forty kilometers from Damascus and one hundred kilometers from Cairo. The Egyptian Third Army was surrounded and taken captive. This was the greatest victory in Israeli history and perhaps one of the greatest in the history of warfare. Israeli forces were ready to take Cairo and Damascus. It was only the political intervention of the United States that prevented the complete collapse of the Arab world. This is the spirit of the Israeli people; never give up. The battles were fought and won mostly by the reserves, ordinary people called upon to save the nation, which they did.
Today, many Jewish leaders in Israel and abroad are misguided in terms of how to achieve peace. If they were to look to our history, to the Bible, the Torah, they would see a clear path laid out before us, true and proven: weakness leads to war, strength leads to peace.
“Yiftah the Giladi was an able warrior” (Judges 1:1). The representatives of Amon, a warring nation, come to Yiftah and demand territorial concessions. These are not legitimate demands, and there is no cause for Amon to make such demands. As Yiftah points out, Israel has done Amon no wrong, and each should accept their borders as they are.
“Behold, that which Chemosh your god gives you as an inheritance, that you shall inherit, and all that our God has bequeathed to us we shall inherit” (Judges 11:24).
“But the king of the Ammonites paid no heed to the message that Yiftah sent him” (Judges 11:28).
“He utterly routed them—from Aroer as far as Minith, twenty towns—all the way to Abel-Cheramin. So the Ammonites submitted to the Israelites” (Judges 11:32).
CHAPTER 16
The United States, a Nation of Warriors, Again
I have two flags in my home—Israeli and American. I see our two histories as intertwined. Jews were in America from the very beginning, helping finance the Revolutionary War and fighting the battles. The ancient Hebrew was also there spiritually. Many early Americans had Hebrew biblical names. Read any account of early American history and you will come across one Hebrew name after another. The ancient Israelites served as an inspiration for the early Americans; the fight for freedom and a just cause against their oppressors. They saw themselves as the spiritual heirs, the modern Israelites.
Our two nations share a common vision, and in many ways, a common faith. Common values unite us against those who wish to destroy our way of life. We must work together. Like many of us, I shall never forget where I was when I heard the news of the attack on the Twin Towers. Within two weeks, I was in New York standing as close to the ruins as I could get; the police were still there. I saw the smoke; two weeks had passed and the place was still in smoke. I walked around the city and saw the posters with pictures of missing loved ones and the ad hoc memorials set up for those who fell victim to this terrible crime of hate and intolerance. Americans seemed confused and bewildered; the attack had caught them unawares. For me it was clear; the age-old conflict from the Middle East, the Jihad, was simply taking one more step—Jihad was coming to the United States. It started thirteen hundred years ago with swords and men riding camels; it continues today with box cutters and suicide bombers in planes. But really, it is the same.
Once again, this was an area where Americans could learn from Israelis. The United States is over four hundred fifty times larger than Israel, with many times the population, wealth, and resources, but we in Israel are the older sibling, much older, and much more experienced. We are the seed from which America grew. It is from our Book that the founding fathers drew their nourishment; it is from our biblical warriors and heroes that they drew their inspiration.
The United States tends to act somewhat arrogant toward Israel due to its wealth and power and forgets that even in modern times Israel has given the United States a great deal—perhaps even more than it has received. “Contrary to popular lore, the equivalent of what Israel contributed to the US immeasurably surpasses, even in monetary terms, the sum total of what America gave Israel from the 1970s on (prior to that we got nothing, yet miraculously managed to thrive). America enjoyed access to Israeli intelligence, including information on Soviet weaponry, battlefield tryouts for American military hardware, their innovative improvement, etc” (Jerusalem Post Magazine, April 2, 2010).
For the United States to become a nation of warriors again, it needs to become a little more humble and recognize Israel as a true and equal ally. The contributions of Israel and the Jewish people to the United States include some of the most prized documents, like the Declaration of Independence and the Statue of Liberty poem—the soul of the people of Israel is engraved in the United States.
The words on the Statue of Liberty were written by a Jewish woman, Emma Lazarus, daughter of Moshe and Esther.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
How tragically ironic—the Statue of Liberty, which has beckoned millions of the poor and unfortunate to come to the shores of the United States, yet ignored the Jewish plight during the genocide of World War Two, and then stood overlooking, “watching,” as our enemies took advantage of American kindness and generosity and came to these shores with hate.
The smoke of the Twin Towers rising up to the heavens reminded me of the smoke from the crematoriums at Auschwitz, where Jews and others were murdered and then burned—for the crime of being “different.” The United States embraces the different, and yet these people came to its friendly skies and turned the World Trade Center into a crematorium.
When Americans come to Israel to train in Krav Maga, when this cultural exchange of survival knowledge takes place, I feel it is our way of standing united against tyranny. That is what the American founding fathers did, that is what we are all doing today. Let freedom ring. The United States is the great experiment in freedom; a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. As of late, it has come under criticism, from without and within. Let us not forget that the US flag stands for freedom and that around the world people look to that flag for inspiration and hope. The Statue of Liberty is still a beacon of hope for the oppressed, as is the spirit of the American people. Yet some have forgotten this message. They have forgotten the heroes who fought and died for that freedom. They have forgotten that freedom is never free and that many have paid the ultimate price to maintain that freedom.
Statue of Liberty, New York, © Gary / Fotolia
During my travels around the United States, I have found many friends and supporters of Israel. They understand Israel, support her, and pray for her people. I have found many allies who speak our language. I have found veterans of America’s wars; those who have served in the marines, air force, navy, coast guard, and all the branches of the US fighting force. I have met police, FBI, SWAT team instructors, and corrections officers. There is a nation of warriors within the United States, there are people who still believe in freedom and are willing to fight for it, but they are not the majority.
To me, these men and women represent the finest the United States has to offer; their self-sacrifice, patriotism, and commitment to their core values are an inspiration. They give without any expectation of reward. Their only reward is the knowledge that they have served their country and that they are ready at a moment’s notice to serve again.
In this day and age, such behavior is too often seen as foolish, their sacrifice is ignored or even worse, mocked, by too many in the American population, as if being a patriot is the same as being called a naïve fool who is blindly following a corrupt government. The idea of “my country right or wrong” is seen as outdated. How sad when a nation does not appreciate and recognize its protectors.
How can we change this sorry situation? One answer is to look to Israel. In September 2008, a group of American veterans, members of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), visited Israel. They quickly picked up on the idea of Israel as a nation of warriors, the kind they would like the United States to be once again. “Israel is a model of social involvement…it’s great to be in a country where everyone is so involved, where everyone understands sacrifice and what it means” said Paul Rieckhoff, director and founder of IAVA (Jerusalem Post, September 17, 2008).
They were impressed with the spirit of the Israeli fighters and called them “dynamic, innovative fighters.” They were also struck by the prominence of the military in Israeli culture, “You can tell from the moment you get here that Israel appreciates its soldiers, Israel supports its soldiers. Its soldiers and its people are one, which is very different from what you see in the US…I think the US has lost some of that appreciation” (Ibid.).
Another answer is in education and proper role models. Many people enjoy watching cop shows on TV; Law & Order, NYPD Blue, CSI, and so forth. When they are stopped by a police officer, however, they become indignant! “How dare you delay me or interrupt my day!” They do not stop to think about this police officer’s day, about his or her life. They do not think of the dangers he faces to keep citizens safe.
My friend, Louie Balestrieri, a retired NYPD detective from the Organized Crime Investigation Division, decorated multiple times for actions involving grave personal risk, served for many years with the police force. On several occasions, he would have been justified to take a human life, and yet he did not. Still, at certain times, during certain operations, he was criticized and second-guessed. We like a perfect world where no mistakes are made, where every split second decision in the heat of an operation is correct, where a good guy never accidentally gets stopped for questioning. Such is not reality. The public must understand this.
When I hear Louie’s stories, told in such a humble manner, I am in awe of what he has faced, alone. The American public does not seem to know or appreciate what their boys in blue do for them, day in and day out. Their officers bear their scars—emotional and physical—alone, without appreciation. It seems as though the only actions that receive attention are when some innocent person accidentally gets pushed around. Do we understand what these public servants live with? Can we appreciate the danger they face?
This must be part of their education if the United States is to become a nation of warriors once again. They must educate people about the sacrifice, commitment, and contribution of their law enforcement and military community, those who serve and their families. They must learn to appreciate their warriors. They must show them respect.
We can all do something about this—each one of us in our own line of work. When I trained at Dr. Beasley’s Karate College in Virginia, we always ended our three days of intensive training with a salute to the United States and its heroes. We saluted the men and women who have served it through the armed forces and the security forces. Dr. Beasley would call up the members of each branch of the service, one at a time. “Will all those who served in the marines please come up front. Will all those who served in the navy please step forward and join them.” Suddenly, some of our black belt instructors stepped forward; some were old men already. We had not known that they once were in the military. We gained even greater respect for them—they were true warriors. As each group marched up to the front of the room, the anthem of its branch was played. It was a very inspiring and motivational moment. We concluded with the Pledge of Allegiance.
For all the young people in the room, I am sure it awakened in them a pride for their country and perhaps a thought that someday, perhaps they too would serve their nation and be recognized for their contribution. By honoring our veterans, we set an example for the next generation.
To serve is an honor and should be seen as such. In Israel, people prematurely discharged from the army often hire lawyers to get back in. They will go to doctors to prove they are healthy enough to serve. The fellow who killed the terrorist with the tractor spent a year with a lawyer until he was reinstated in his unit. We must restore the same spirit in the United States.
Today, the US military offers benefits to encourage people to enlist; it feels that it has no choice. It is as if it is saying, “Think of your own benefit; the military can help you advance your own cause.” Whatever happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”?
In Israel, you must serve. If you are a pacifist, you might get away with a noncombat job, but being a pacifist is really not considered a legitimate excuse for not serving. There is a joke: A pacifist wants to get out of the draft. The recruiting officer says, “Why? Do you have any emotional problems? That is, besides being a pacifist?”
Some are given the choice of “national service,” for instance, to volunteer in a hospital for a year or work with the disadvantaged. In either case, you must serve your country. Whnd values of the past. When it comes to a job interview, the first question asked is, “Where did you serve?” Perhaps it is time for the United States to reinstate the draft, or at least require some form of service to the nation. Be proud to be an American! You will have plenty of time to complete your education.
When you have served, you will have formed a bond with your countrymen from other walks of life. You will have learned to speak a certain common language. You will have something to believe in. It is said that a man who has nothing to die for also has nothing to live for. Give American youth back their values—teach them hard work and discipline. It will create a stronger backbone for the entire society.
The founding fathers did not want a professional army; they wanted a true people’s army, an army of people that cared about America—that great experiment in democracy. A nation of people that can rule themselves and fight for themselves—that was their dream. It is not too late for their dream.
CHAPTER 17
The Gaza War (Protective Edge) and the Social Media
Generation
We dream and pray for the biblical words “and the land shall rest for forty years” but it is not to be. Every couple of years another battle flares up, sometimes it is called a war and sometimes only an “operation.” Either way, our troops are called up, our young men die.
There were some who had their doubts about the “social media generation,” the generation of smartphones, text messages, and all the new hi-tech gadgets. All these devices are geared toward the self-centered individual. Gone were the days of the pioneers who lived for the state, gone were the ideals and values of the past. So some thought. The social media generation proved them wrong. The nation rose to the occasion, perhaps as never before.
The stories that are told about the Gaza War, Operation Protective Edge (July 2014), are in proportion to every war we have fought, including back to biblical days. This war has it all: self-sacrifice and extreme heroism of soldiers, the nation coming together as “one man with one heart” and giving its all to the troops, and miracles of biblical proportions reported by secular and religious alike.
Just as in the past, Israelis showed up for reserves before they received their orders. Those that were not called in the initial call-up showed up anyway. Men in their 50s showed up to join their units, often fighting near their own sons. Israelis abroad, on vacation, for studies, dropped everything, paid for their own tickets and flew home to join their units. “No man was absent” and no woman either. Pregnant woman showed up for reserve duty. No one stayed back. Everyone wanted “in.” Women distinguished themselves as well. Four female paramedics served in Gaza, treated the wounded, and marched with the troops. Under fire, they treated their patients and saved lives.
Commanders who were hurt refused to be treated before “their” soldiers were treated. Everyone gave, everyone sacrificed for the other. The spirit of these brave warriors rose to the heavens and brought untold blessings.
As always, rabbis were on the front line and the Rabbinic academies did what they could. The summer break was canceled. The rabbis said, “While the soldiers are fighting you too must fight by studying the holy Torah and praying to God.” No one went home. The rabbis said, “The soldiers sleep with their boots on, so shall you.” And the young scholars studied, taking only occasional naps, with their shoes on. A spiritual war was under way.
A commander comes into battle with his troops for a predawn attack, but his support troops are delayed. Soon the sun will rise; the surprise will be over. Suddenly, a great fog descends and hides the sun. As in the days of Joshua, a great miracle took place and the children of Israel were protected by heavenly forces.
The Israeli invention, the “Iron Dome” works and thousands of enemy rockets are shot out of the sky, but sometimes it did not work. The enemy said, “Their God is redirecting our rockets!” Story after story reveal cases where suddenly a great wind came and knocked the rocket off course, landing harmlessly in the sea or in open territory. One such rocket is capable of killing hundreds of people. During Protective Edge, over three thousand rockets were fired. Only one Israeli citizen was killed.
Many a soldier cried out “God is with me in Gaza!” It was felt that God marched into Gaza with His people. And the people of Israel united like never before. Truckloads of goods arrived at the front lines. There was more food and snacks than anyone knew what to do with. Restaurants served soldiers home on leave for free. Everyone was giving to the soldiers, everything was free!
The social media generation fought hard, on the battlefield and off. Many ordinary citizens became ambassadors for Israel, self-appointed defenders of our nation, posting up-to-the-minute news and commentary about the war on all social media. People dropped everything to stand up for Israel—in Israel and all over the world—as “one man with one heart.” Once again Israel’s sons and daughters, old and young, rose to the occasion. “Who is like Your nation Israel, one singular nation in the land” (Chronicles I 17). Truly, we are one.
CHAPTER 18
How to Start Your Own Krav Maga Club
There was a time when the Asian martial arts were most relevant and practical. However, gone are the days of the Samurai and the Ninja. Sadly, Israel is in an era of war and terrorism. As such, Krav Maga is considered among the most relevant and practical fighting systems for today’s urban population. Police forces, the military, prison guards, and security companies all over the world are bringing in Krav Maga experts from Israel to teach them the latest, most practical method. You can be a part of this growing trend.
Information about how to start a Krav Maga club is available on the Israeli Krav International (IKI) website. Contact Moshe Katz for personal guidance and training. You will receive expert advice on how to get started and how to succeed.
Some people shy away from the word “warrior.” Warriors are associated with armies and the military which have become targets of criticism for liberal minded people.
A warrior is a noble person, a person with the highest values of our society. He trains to fight not from a thirst for violence, but for our peace and security. He trains hard to be there when society needs him; his is a life of service and sacrifice. It is time to restore the warrior to his rightful place in society.
I am writing these words shortly after my first visit to Norway, where I had been invited to teach Krav Maga seminars. The word “Oslo” has a bitter taste for me. It was in Oslo that the horrific “Oslo Accords” were signed, where Israel was pressured into making suicidal concessions to our enemies, who are bent on our destruction. Too many of our people have since been murdered by terrorists, a direct result of these concessions. Oslo signifies defeat, the beginning of the end of our dream.
Most of the people I met in Oslo had never met a Jew or an Israeli, and they were totally unfamiliar with the life we lead, as I was unfamiliar with theirs. My first introduction to the Norwegian mindset was upon landing at the airport and dealing with the Norwegian security. What I found odd about Norwegian security was this—it does not exist! I walked off the plane, picked up my luggage, walked through the “nothing to declare” zone, and left! That was it, no police, no questioning, no passport control, not even the longed for stamp on my passport, nothing at all. I never even saw a police officer.
My host, Morten, explained to me during my visit that it is part of Norwegian culture to be peacemakers and go-betweens. He said, “We choose to be naïve.”
But something was happening in Norway; Muslims were moving in, crime was on the rise, and fear began to take hold. But few, if any, were willing to speak up. Privately, some told me, “We are Norwegians and yet in our own country we have to watch what we say lest we offend the Muslims, who are outsiders in this land.” Of course, this made no sense, but it takes people awhile to wake up. We Israelis woke up millennia ago.
The Norwegians mean well, but they do not get it. They will someday. They should not be intermediaries; they should not be involved in the so-called “peace process” because, just like most Americans, they just do not get it.
I get it. As a young child, age six, living in Israel, I was taught our history. My dad, of blessed memory, gave me a book and inscribed it with the words, “May you live Jewish history every day.” And I do. I learned the words to the song, “Ha’olam Kulo Negdeinu” (“The Whole World is Against Us”) (accessed June 30, 2015), I watched real footage from the Holocaust and saw neighbors with the numbers the Nazis tattooed on their arms to show us that we are “numbers, not men.” On the way to summer camp, I saw a bombed-out house, the result of a recent terrorist attack, and in the synagogue on our holy day of Yom Kippur I heard that once again all our Arab neighbors launched a massive attack to finish the job that Hitler started. So I get it. It is in my blood.
People do not like wars and they want to bring the sides together to make peace. I understand, but it is not so simple. We too want peace, but as the prophet said, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace.” So I remember the air raids during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. I remember my dear mom running to the bomb shelter and my dad, of blessed memory, leaving the house in his IDF uniform. I remember the last postcard one of our teachers sent us from the front lines in Sinai; the last one he would ever send. He did not make it.
So I get it. We do not have the luxury of allowing people to get off the plane and just walk out and go home; cannot be done here. We do not even have the luxury of driving more than a few kilometers without being stopped at a roadblock or walking into a supermarket without being checked. My friends, you are not in Norway anymore; welcome to the Middle East!
So I do not appreciate it when well-meaning outsiders try to push us into negotiations with an enemy they do not understand; a situation they cannot grasp. It takes a certain kind of life to understand what is going on over here and they just do not get it. Woe unto those who do not understand the nature of the enemy and the impending attack. How easy it is to become complacent and believe that one can easily achieve “peace in our times.” If only it were so simple.
And so we live with the sword and the Torah; the Bible. We read the ancient words, “Have a horse ready for the day of combat and the redemption shall be that of God” (Mishlei, Proverbs 21:31).
And in the words of a modern poet, we vow, “We won’t be fooled again.”
And we pray for the words, “And the land was quiet for forty years” (Judges 5:31). May it be so, speedily, in our times. Amen.
We are a grateful people.
We suffer, we die, we are forced to kill,
but we are a grateful people.
We bury…unspeakable pain,
but we are grateful, even for this.
There was a time,
when even a “Jewish burial”
was denied us, not once,
not only during the Dark Years,
but during the many massacres,
pogroms, and inquisitions,
in all the lands of the exiles.
To bury, and to be able to say
the prayer for the dead,
to sanctify God’s name,
even with pain, we are grateful.
As the Hebrew song says, “We are grateful for the good, for the bad, for the good” (“Modeh Ani,” – “I’m Grateful”) (accessed June 30, 2015).
A melancholy smile comes across the face of a paratrooper. To the outside world this is confusing, but to us…it is the joy of liberating Jerusalem, but the pain of losing so many friends. The joy of freedom, but the sorrow of the cost. He marches forward in his red boots, but with him are the ghosts of all the friends who can no longer walk, he carries them with him, brothers in arms, forever.
We are grateful, the world forces us into an unbearable situation, they want to divide our land, and this question threatens to divide our people, but we are grateful to walk on sovereign Jewish land. We walk near the ruins of our Holy Temple, foreigners, outsiders, rule over it now, but we are grateful, to walk near it, to touch the outside stones, to feel, to remember, we are grateful even for this.
Foreigners have trampled over our Temple, the Home of Holiness, but today our feet can come close, can walk where our ancestors walked on their way to the Temple. We are grateful, despite a pain, a pain so deep it goes back two thousand years. We are grateful to be here today, there is a smile, with a tear, the heart is full and broken, all at once…all at once.
I am grateful to You, Lord of the Universe, who has kept me alive to see this glorious day.
APPENDIX A
The Future, Continually Adapting
The IDF is a leader in military innovation—continually adapting organizationally and technologically to fulfill the duty to protect our nation. In the news:
“IDF to Establish New Cyber Command,” Israel National News, June 16, 2015
“Navy’s Cyber Warriors in Technological Arms Race with Israel’s Foes,” Jerusalem Post, April 28, 2015
“IDF Introduces the Commando Division,” Israel National News, July 6, 2015
“Even if a Missile Strikes our Operations, We will Keep the IDF’s Network Running,” Jerusalem Post, April 30, 2015
“Getting Big Data to the Skies,” Jerusalem Post, April 29, 2015
“IDF’s Cyber Defenders Preparing for Attacks by ‘Lebanese Opponent’,” Jerusalem Post, May 1, 2015
“US, IDF Begin Training ‘Magic Wand’ Operators,” Israel National News, June 29, 2015
“Israel’s New ‘Sci-Fi’ Fighter Jet Helmet,” Israel National News, June 15, 2015
“New in IDF: Tactical Kamikaze Drones,” Israel National News, May 28, 2015
(Links accessed July 10, 2015)
Israeli War of Independence, November 1947-July 1949
Reprisal operations, 1950s-1960s
Suez Crisis, October 1956
Six-Day War, June 1967
War of Attrition, 1967-1970
Yom Kippur War, October 1973
1982 Lebanon War, 1982
2006 Lebanon War, summer 2006
Operation Cast Lead, December 2008-January 2009
Operation Pillar of Defense, November 2012
Operation Protective Edge, July-August 2014
Arens, Moshe, Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, 2011
Bankier, David, editor, The Jews Are Coming Back, Berghahn Books, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2005
Bankier, David, editor, Probing the Depths of German Anti-semitism, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2000
Begin, Menachem, The Revolt, Steimatzky, Bnei Brak, Israel, 1990
Black, Edward, Banking on Baghdad, Dialog Press, Westport, CT, 2008
Blady, Ken, Jewish Communities in Exotic Places, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 2000
Bogner, Nahum, At the Mercy of Strangers, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2009
Buchler, Yehoshua, The Profile of the Jews in Slovakia after World War II, Yalkut Moreshet, 65, 1998
Dio, Cassius, The Collected Works of Cassius Dio, Halcyon Press, Aukland, 2010
Eckman, Lester, and Lazar, Chaim, The Jewish Resistance, Shengold Publishers, Inc., New York, 1977
Edelman, Marek, The Ghetto Fights, Bookmarks, 1990
Fisch, Harold, The Koren Jerusalem Bible, Koren Publishers, Jerusalem, 2008
Gil, Itay, and Baron, Dan, The Citizen’s Guide to Stopping Suicide Attackers, Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado, 2004
Goodman, Martin, Rome and Jerusalem, Vintage, London, 2008
Graetz, Heinrich, History of the Jews, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1967
Herzog, Chaim, The Arab-Israeli Wars, Vintage, London, 2005
Jabotinsky, Ze’ev, The War and the Jew, Altalena Press, New York, 1987
Josephus, Flavius, The Jewish War, Penguin, New York, 1984
Kahane, Charles, Torah Yesharah, Solomon Rabinowitz Book Concern, New York, 1963
Kahane, Meir, Listen Vanessa, I am a Zionist, The Desert Ulpan, Tucson, Arizona, 1978
Kritzler, Edward, Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, Aurum Press, London, 2014
Lazar, Chaim, Destruction and Resistance, Shengold Publishers, Inc., New York, 1985
Raab, David, Terror in Black September, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007
Rozett, Robert, Conscripted Slaves, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2000
Schurer, Emil, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 1993
Sutton, Karen, The Massacre of the Jews of Lithuania, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem, 2014
Yadin, Yigael, Bar-Kokhba, Random House, New York, 1971
My father always taught us to stand strong, to be proud of who we are, to embrace our heritage. He was a proud Jew and a proud American. He was an American Eagle Scout and an Israeli soldier, a community leader, and a family man. He was a man who lived his life by his principles. His beliefs were translated into action throughout his life. He took up the pulpit to preach for Israel and to mobilize support. When Israel was attacked in 1967, he packed up his young family and moved to Israel.
He taught us not to run away, not to back off from a fight or any challenge. When he knew he was right, he would not accept “no” as an answer. He believed in being a “majority of one.” He led by example and he was proud when we followed his example, just as he had followed the example of his dear father, Moe Katz, for whom I am named.
When we embraced Jewish activism—he was there; for moral support, to bail us out of trouble, to pick up the pieces. He may have been worried, but he never showed it; he only showed pride.
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he answered the call to arms and joined the IDF, serving with the home front, doing his share. I can still picture him in his uniform. In his later years, as a retiree, he volunteered with pride with the Jerusalem police force, patrolling the Old City of Jerusalem. He passed on suddenly in April 2004.
He is with me with every step I take, with every challenge I face, and with every obstacle I overcome.
Behind every warrior, and next to every warrior, is the woman who makes it all possible. From taking several buses to visit my brother, Ethan, while he was serving in some isolated base in the middle of the Negev desert, to packing cookies to send to my nephew, Yitzi, serving in the paratroopers, to sleepless nights while my nephew, Arie, fought in Lebanon, my mother has been the cornerstone and rock of the family.
More than that, it is the confidence one is imbued with from a loving mother that makes all accomplishments, and sacrifices, possible. The daughter, wife, and mother of rabbis, she embodies all the virtues of the classic “woman of valor.”
Ethan always wanted to serve the people of Israel. In his high school yearbook, his personal page was devoted entirely to guns and Israel. One of his friends said, “I don’t know if Ethan included all the family members, but he certainly included all the family guns!” The yearbook staff wrote, “Ethan will certainly go far, probably the Syrian-Lebanese border.”
As soon as Ethan graduated high school, as his classmates were off to study, he flew to Israel and volunteered to join the army. He served in the combat unit Nachal Mutznach (infantry, paratroopers), a highly respected unit known for combating terrorists in Arab-controlled cities—Hebron, Jenin, Bethlehem. The unit earned recognition for having badly hurt the infrastructure of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad in these towns.
Ethan always responded to the call when it was time to report for reserve duty, considering it an honor and a privilege to serve. He chose the difficult path, walking in the footsteps of ancient Hebrew warriors. He was raised with the stories of the Maccabees, the Bar Kochba revolt, and the freedom fighters for Israel. He continued their battle; he embraced their struggle.
Today, he serves as a role model for youth; teaching and inspiring them to walk in the footsteps of giants. He brings to life the lives, stories, and sacrifices of those warriors who came before us, inspiring the future and setting an example. His passion for the cause has earned him widespread recognition and respect; more importantly, he has shaped the lives of many—young and old.
Arie is named for his great-grandfather on his mother’s side, who was taken away by the Nazis in Poland. When Arie visited Poland as part of the March of the Living program, he recited the Kaddish, the Jewish mourner’s prayer, in memory and in honor of his namesake. The true honor, I believe, is the life he leads and the service he performs for our people. Arie served for five years in the hesder program, combining intensive religious studies with combat service in the IDF.
To him, it is an honor to serve. He has never shown any fear, any hesitation, or any doubt. He has never bragged about his accomplishments nor complained about any difficulties—he carries himself like a true warrior.
He is a member of the 101 Paratrooper unit, a unit that played a key role in the Second Lebanon War. He suffered the loss of two brave and honorable commanders—Yiftach Shrier and Ilan Gabai, of blessed memory. Arie participated in some of the toughest battles of the Second Lebanon War, but did his best to hide this from the family, to spare us the worry.
After completing his obligatory military service he traveled to many countries to teach Jewish youth and inspire them with our heritage. He continues to serve in the reserves. May God always watch over him and protect him.
To all these and so many more, I dedicate this book. For it is an ongoing battle, an unfinished story. May we soon be able to say, in the words of the Bible, “And the land was quiet for forty years.”
The author doing military service, 1993
Moshe Katz was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and has lived in Maaleh Adumim, Israel, for many years. He is a graduate of UCLA (BA) and Bernard Baruch Business School (MBA). He served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – Infantry.
Katz has over thirty years martial arts experience. He is the founder of Israeli Krav International (IKI) and serves as Head Instructor. In addition to teaching in Israel, he tours the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and South America teaching Krav Maga/Israeli Self-Defense.
• 6th dan black belt Krav Maga
• Only 4th dan black belt certified by Itay Gil, former trainer of Israel’s elite counterterrorism force and trainer of elite units
• Member Masters Council, Black Dragon Fighting Society International, Dr. Lawrence Day, Prof. Joe Cayer
• Certified by Wingate Institute – Israel’s national sports center, martial arts department
• 2010 European Krav Maga instructor of the year
• 2014 Black Belt Hall of Fame International Krav Maga instructor of the year
• Certified – handgun, Urban Combat Shooting
Experience Israel for yourself. Immerse yourself in two weeks of Krav Maga training and Jewish/Israeli history—in the land of Israel where it all took place.
Visit the IKI website: www.your-krav-maga-expert.com
