Start-up spot: Double defense

Kobi Lichtenstein brought Krav Maga to Brazil and with it, a sense of Zionism.

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Kobi Lichtenstein (right) demonstrates how to disarm an enemy using Krav Maga. (photo credit: Courtesy)
Kobi Lichtenstein (right) demonstrates how to disarm an enemy using Krav Maga.
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Krav Maga is world-renowned as a self-defense system developed in Israel, but for Israeli- Brazilian Master Kobi Lichtenstein, it serves as a double defense mechanism: defense of oneself, and defense of Israel’s name abroad.
The Rehovot-born Lichtenstein began training in Krav Maga in 1967 at the age of three, under the expertise of the father of this fighting system, Imi Lichtenfeld, and soon became a Krav Maga prodigy. At the time, few were familiar with Krav Maga – a practice Lichtenfeld introduced to the IDF in the late 1940s, and started going strong among civilians in the ’80s.
At age 15, having passed the six levels required to earn the brown belt and taken an instructors course, Lichtenstein began teaching the self-defense mechanism to others. He established a training center in Kibbutz Givat Brenner, to which busloads of students from moshavim and kibbutzim in the region would come; he also worked in schools in Rishon Lezion, gradually spreading the art across central-southern Israel.
Serving in the Israel Air Force, Lichtenstein used his skills and knowledge as an integral part of many special missions.
Later in life, having fallen for a Jewish Brazilian woman, love led Lichtenstein to move to Brazil in 1990 and marry.
With this life change, he was determined to spread the practice of Krav Maga further afield, with the support of Master Imi.
“I began teaching Krav Maga to the first group in South America, and at the beginning it went very slowly,” he tells the Magazine. His first endeavor was to introduce the art to Jewish schools, but they rejected the idea, intimidated by the concept.
“At first it was hard, people were suspicious,” Lichtenstein recalls, but after working with the police and the army and establishing a training center, members of the public became familiar with Krav Maga – and the practice took off in South America, with Lichtenstein at its helm. There are now 150 Krav Maga training centers scattered across the continent, with 112 instructors and 10,000 students – and this is only expected to grow.
The system is taught in the Brazilian army, police force and the president’s security force, with schools also providing Krav Maga lessons. The Brazilian Krav Maga guru also founded the Krav Maga Federation, recognized as one of the martial art’s largest unions, and is certified by the Brazilian government.
Lichtenstein is keen to point out that in every training center, a large Israeli flag is hung next to a flag of the relevant Brazilian state or province; the four-year process to get fighter certification also includes 30 hours of pre-state and contemporary Israeli history.
“They learn the history of the Jewish people,” Lichtenstein explains.
“I tell them how the story of the Jewish people started and progressed, including Theodor Herzl’s founding of the World Zionist Organization, the pogroms, the British Mandate, how the Hagana, Irgun and Stern Group defended the Jewish nation in Israel, the pioneers, Israel’s political problems and terror threats.”
He emphasizes that it is important to him that his students learn about Israel through its history, rather than through the media, “so they understand the real situation there.”
In addition, since 1994, Lichtenstein has visited Israel every year with a group of South American Krav Maga instructors and students, many whom have never before been to the country.
This annual “pilgrimage” began mainly as a way for his students to meet and train with Master Imi; when Imi died in 1998, Lichtenstein stopped the visits for a time out of sadness for his teacher’s passing. But the trips resumed, and are very popular among his students.
“It’s very important to me that my students in Brazil know what the real Israel is,” he reiterates during the latest visit of this kind last month, as a group of Brazilians train under the guidance of Israeli instructor Elad Binenfeld and Lichtenstein at Netanya’s Wingate Institute, the National Center for Physical Education and Sport. “This includes broad views, innovation, modernization, advanced technology.”
The groups train in locations such as Tiberias, Jerusalem, Rosh Hanikra, Acre and Haifa, also visiting the Hamas terror tunnels in Sderot and paying homage at the grave of Lichtenfeld.
“We have a big problem now in the world, with the negative image of Israel that is presented by the media,” he laments, noting that the streets of Brazil are rife with anti-Semitism and that these trips are more crucial than ever.
Indeed, one member of his delegation, Fernata Alvarenga of Brasilia, says her first experience of Israel went above and beyond her expectations. “Wow, it’s incredible – I can breathe history,” she gushes.
For Alvarenga, Krav Maga represents another important issue: women’s ability to defend themselves. She began practicing five years ago when she realized – while playing with her nephew – how much stronger he was than her. “I was 23 and he was 12,” she recounts. “So this motivated me to try.” Today, her nephew is no longer stronger than her.
Alvarenga believes it is important for all women to learn how to defend themselves – particularly in Brazil, which is notorious for its street crime. While she has fortunately never had to use her Krav Maga skills in real life, her husband had to defend himself once at a mall in Sao Paulo – when he was mugged and attacked at knife-point.
Women are often a target because they look weak, she adds. “I never had self-confidence before, and now I have at least a little bit.”
Krav Maga’s contribution to personal self-confidence is a recurring theme among practitioners. Lichtenstein’s 20-year-old son Yoav, who started training at age six, says the skills it endows the practitioner with arm them with confidence not only on the streets, but in all corners of daily life: “In your job, at university – you’re not afraid of anyone.”
Instructor Binenfeld, of Moshav Tal Shahar, goes even further, asserting that it is so essential to learn the martial art, he would place it above mathematics.
“Krav Maga is not just techniques: It’s body language, a set of tools, values, how to behave. I believe it’s the basic thing to learn – it’s how to talk to each other in the correct language. Everyone should do it.”
He teaches it in schools and explains that the movement, safety and logic behind the system is what drew him to it.
“In my opinion, self-defense is a need... I love helping people learn how to defend themselves, and it’s an honor for me to help push this contribution to schools.”
Asked whether it doesn’t encourage violence, Binenfeld cites the phrase, “Violence out of self-defense is not violence, but intelligence.” He clarifies that in Krav Maga, one never starts the fight and only resorts to violence if there is no other choice.
“We even take the hit and stay out of the fight, we don’t want to go into a violent situation – you don’t know how it’s going to end.” But when push comes to shove, “If it’s between me or him, it’s me.”
Lichtenstein has thus far brought some 1,000 Krav Maga practitioners to visit the country where this art form began, and will continue in his mission to disseminate the Israeli practice across Latin America, and to acquaint his students with his homeland.
He notes that the groups he brings to Israel return to their country as ambassadors for Israel. For him, this is as important as his life-long dedication to teaching the man – and woman – on the street how to defend themselves.


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