Dozens of European rabbis underwent Krav Maga hand-to-hand combat training in the Netherlands on Tuesday, as part of the professional training program of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE).

The training in the city of Eindhoven was “pretty basic, teaching community rabbis from across the continent the key moves, in the hope that they’ll follow up in their own communities,” Akiva Komisar, a Chabad rabbi from Amsterdam, told JNS.

His Chabad House in central Amsterdam began offering Krav Maga lessons to community members after Nov. 8, when dozens of Arab and Muslim men carried out a coordinated attack on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam for a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Ajax team.

“It was a shock for the entire community. We thought we were living in a nice, tolerant place, and suddenly, we found out that we’re living among people who can turn very violent,” said Kamisar, the 40-year-old father of seven children. “So the need to train in self-defense really presented itself,” he added.

Beyond the Netherlands, as well, the surge of antisemitic attacks after Oct. 7, 2023, means that “every rabbi in Europe is exposed to the risk of assault whenever they walk down the street,” said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the Brussels-based chairman of the RCE and the European Jewish Association (EJA).

“This is a true alarm bell for European governments,” added Margolin, who introduced Krav Maga training also during the EJA’s annual gathering in 2024 in Amsterdam.

Margolin said the security efforts of Jewish communities—ranging from martial arts training to the installation and maintenance of security surveillance apparatus at Jewish community sites—must be complemented by police patrolling and “significantly increased punishments and enforcement for antisemitic attacks.”

At the training session in Eindhoven on Tuesday, an instructor took the group of rabbis outside and paired them for exercises in which they alternated between playing the attacker and the defender.

The idea for the training session came from “many rabbis who fear walking in the streets and feel defenseless, knowing they are vulnerable at any moment to physical attacks,” said Rabbi Aryeh Goldberg, director general of the RCE.

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