We packed a couple of Chinese martial arts movies into the last week and as much as we enjoyed Kung Fu Hustle and House of Flying Daggers, we kept thinking What the world needs is more Jews who can somesault through treetops, toss bad guys aside with a fingertip and brandish swords with authority. We dug The Hebrew Hammer and all, but we want some real action.
Our search for kung fu Jews to star in our imaginary production led us to Abir Warrior Arts, a Jerusalem-based school that teaches a form of combative art that supposedly originated with the ancient Israelites but was lost as our ancestors dispersed around the globe.
“Much of the bulk of what was left intact was kept alive by a group of nomadic Jews who roamed the Hejaz desert. Twelve Tribes dance steps and the form and shapes of the Hebrew letters contained deadly martial applications forgotten by virtually the rest of the world’s Jewry.”
Interesting that the aleph bet contains not only the secrets of kabbalah, but also directions for slaying the enemy. With basic bar mitzvah knowledge and some rigorous training from Grandmaster Yehoshua Sofer, we could pull out a killer nun-gimel-hay-shin, aka The Deadly Dreidel. (Fine, we just made that up. But good kung fu movie material, nu?)