Who was Imi (Emerich) Lichtenfeld?
Krav maga Founder Imi (Emerich) Lichtenfeld (1910-1998) was born in Budapest, Czechoslovakia and later resided in Bratislava. Imi’s father, Samuel Lichtenfeld, joined a professional circus where he excelled at wrestling and boxing. After developing extensive knowledge in fitness training along with wrestling, boxing, and mixed-skill fighting , Samuel joined the police as a detective and had the leading arrest record. Samuel also opened the gym “Hercules” where Imi began his training. Imi rapidly distinguished himself as a champion in judo, boxing, wrestling, gymnastics and ball room dancing among other athletic pursuits. In 1935 Imi visited Palestine with a team of Jewish wrestlers to participate in the Maccabi games but could not participate because of a broken rib that resulted from his training while on route. This led the fundamental Krav Maga precept, “do not get hurt” while training. Imi returned to Czechoslovakia to face increasing anti-Semitic violence. Imi organized a group of
