Natan Levy, the only Israeli competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship martial arts competition, says learning self-defence as a child helped him protect friends from antisemitic bullies
September 8, 2022 11:12
The only Israeli in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) martial arts competition says all Jews should learn self-defence, which he learned to protect his friends from antisemitic bullies as a child.
Natan Levy, who won his first professional fight in April, told the JC: “If you learn martial arts no one bullies you.
“They give you confidence and people don’t attack people who look confident. ”
The importance of self-defence was something French-born Mr Levy, who moved to Israel when he was two months old, learned early on.
Natan Levy raises an Israeli flag after winning a bout (Photo: Getty Images)
“When we went to France to see my dad, my cousins would tell me how kids would pull their kippot off, call them names and steal their bikes because they were Jewish,” he said. “I would go around Paris and hunt the bullies down, and strike back. Fighting back came very naturally to me.”
When he was 15 he started training in mixed martial arts, signing with the UFC in 2020. Now he says he uses his martial-arts platform to fight antisemitism.
“Mixed martial arts isn’t an Olympic sport, there’s no national team, but when I’m in the cage, I definitely want to show that Jews are brave, that we can fight and take care of ourselves,” said Mr Levy. “So although I don’t officially represent Israel and the Jewish people, I feel I do in the way I behave and present myself.”
His big UFC win, in which he beat his opponent in a lightweight fight in Las Vegas, fell between Israel’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day Yom HaShoah and Yom Hazikaron, when the Jewish state commemorates the 24,000 soldiers lost in wars since 1948.
Levy as a child
