11th Infantry Battalion in North Africa. The Haganah's leaders immediately recognized Lichtenfeld's fighting prowess and ingenuity. In 1944 Lichtenfeld began training fighters in his areas of expertise: physical fitness, swimming, wrestling, use of the knife, and defenses against knife attacks. During this period, Lichtenfeld trained several elite units of the Haganah and Palmach (striking force of the Haganah and forerunner of the special units of the IDF), including the Pal-yam, as well as groups of police officers. In 1948, when the State of Israel was founded and the IDF was formed, Lichtenfeld became Chief Instructor for Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the IDF School of Combat Fitness. He served in the IDF for about 20 years, during which time he developed and refined his unique method for self-defense and hand-to-hand combat. After he finished his active duty, Lichtenfeld began adapting and modifying Krav Maga to civilian needs. The method was formulated to suit everyone – man and woman, boy or girl, who might need it to save his or her life or survive an attack while sustaining minimal harm, whatever the background of the attack – criminal, nationalistic, or other. To disseminate his method, Lichtenfeld established two training centers, one in Tel Aviv and the other in Netanya. Later life In 1964, Lichtenfeld retired from the Israeli military. He then modified Krav Maga to fit the needs of police forces and ordinary civilians. He trained teams of Krav Maga instructors, who were accredited by him and the Israeli Ministry of Education. He also created the Israeli Krav Maga Association (IKMA) on 22 October 1978 and the International Krav Maga Federation in 1995. On 9 January 1998, Lichtenfeld died in Netanya, Israel, at the age of 87. He is buried at Netanya Shikun Vatikim Cemetery on Section פ. Bibliography Lo Presti, Gaetano. Krav Maga Borè srl, 2013. Lo Presti, Gaetano. Imi Lichtenfeld – The Grand Master of Krav Maga Borè srl, 2015. See also Yehoshua Sofer, the martial artist who conceived the Abir martial art (2002) References Martial arts school founders 1910 births 1998 deaths Hungarian male sport wrestlers Hungarian male artistic gymnasts Jewish boxers Slovak male boxers Slovak male sport wrestlers Slovak male artistic gymnasts Israeli jujutsuka Sportspeople from Bratislava Czechoslovak emigrants to Israel Israeli people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Hungarian Jews Krav Maga practitioners Hungarian male boxers 20th-century philanthropists 20th-century Israeli Jews