Ride 'em Jewboys

You know what's even better than actual problems facing Jews around the world? Totally cracked-out fantasies about bad-ass frontier Jews.

No, I'm not talking about Sol Star or Six-Gun Moses. I'm talking Abir Warrior Arts- which means Rav Lazer "high on crazy" Brody.

Lazer starts off strong:

King David killed a lion and a bear at age three, as a lone shepherd in the wilderness. As Hashem's anointed, he was not only a monumental Torah scholar, but a fierce fighter that spent every available minute in personal prayer.

Tell me, was he praying while practicing his sword-and-sling-play? Or did he just magically absorb these skills by osmosis? Or maybe he found a secret manual in a cave... sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.

People find it hard to believe when the Zohar says that Israel is the fiercest of the nations. The missing piece to the puzzle is Abir - the ancient Hebrew art of combat; if folks knew about the secrets of combat that Hashem revealed to our forefathers, for He grants power to his faithful, then they'd understand exactly how the Zohar is so right on target.

There's the cave-book. Hi, Judaism-on-crack! *waves*

Anyway, yeah, I'm quite impressed by this. Apparently the only reason all the weird shit in the Bible doesn't make sense is because YOU, yeah, stupid skeptic you, didn't know about this crazy Jew-Jitsu, which, incidentally, Lazer can hook you up with discount lessons for. (Now with free coffee mug, with your choice of crazy Haredi rabbi face emblazoned on the side!)

How did Abraham kick ass, you ask? Abir. How did Jacob wrestle with "an evil archangel" [Really? I never heard that. Also, a friend who reads Hebrew and Greek says the Masoretic and Septuagint both have this verse as "man"- the angel bit is all midrash.]? Abir. Moses, Joshua, and all the Judges? Abir.

Yeah, this makes total sense. I wonder who else this works for. Ooh, Noah! How else could he have gotten all those animals to stay in line and get in the boat? All he had to do was Abir-chop a few lions with a "maneuver Aleph" before the rest of them got the hint. And Lot's wife? Duhh, clearly he hated her and didn't want to give her a divorce, and to get out of it, he kicked the air around her until all the water molecules in her body salinated! Man, this Abir stuff is even better than my copy of The Bible for Total Retards.

From generation to generation, a select few carried the secret of Abir - the ancient Hebrew art of combat. With the destruction of the first and second Temples, dispersion and exile among the nations, Abir was largely forgotten.

What, was the temple a dojo? Did the Holy of Holies have the Grand Master's Office and a vending machine?

As our faith in The Creator and the observance of His Torah and its laws and our devotion to prayer and scholarship took precedence throughout the Diaspora, our knowledge of Abir diminished with each passing generation.

Damn prayer and scholarship, they screw you every time.

Jews were held in contempt under the watchful suspicious eyes of their host nations who often sought to control them by limiting their mobility within the confines of a ghetto. In most cases, Jews were commonly denied the right to bear arms or own land and curfews were often enforced upon them.
Collectively congregating to train in Abir or any form of Jewish combat arts would have been seen as incitement to overthrow their hosts and an invitation to collective genocide. That occurred often in our history without any provocation. These harsh conditions were mirrored in Jewish Communities across Europe as well as in Asia and throughout the Middle East and Africa.

That's right, the fact that all the people who knew this secret martial art never practiced it in public and let themselves and all their neighbors be killed for hundreds of years to avoid being discovered and killed is a lot more believable than having them be helpless, powerless and not Mr. Miyagi.

So apparently out of all the people who knew Abir, the "more exotic" Jewish groups, like, say, this random clan in Yemen, preserved it better- predictably, because they "never assimilated". Right, because it's not like you could learn martial arts without reading Hebrew. And of all the exotic, random Yemenis, there was one family who preserved these secrets best. And it just so happens to be the dudes Lazer's friends with! And it turns out they're perfectly happy to share their ancient secrets with shmoes like you in exchange for holy, holy money.

This rare photo from 1922 is proof of something that history finds incredible: King Abdulla Ibn Hussein of Transjordan sits under the watchful eyes of his Jewish bodyguards, Habani Yemenite brothers Sayeed, Salaah, and Saadia Sofer (notice Safeed's especially long sidecurls, left), uncles of today's Abir Aluf, Grandmaster Yehoshua Sofer, may Hashem bless him.
Yehoshua Sofer's father, known as the "Abir Ro'im", or "shepherd knight", is the younger brother of Sayeed, Salaah, and Saadia pictured above, and the son of Nachman Sofer, the Abir master of his generation, a fierce warrior and kabbalist that had 5 wives.

So they were Arab shills and polygamists, but at least they had cool hats. Fantastic.

Today, Abir Ro'im is well over 100 years old, and blind.

Yeah, let's totally give him swords!

Yet, he still possesses an uncanny personal radar and could cope with literally any threat.

We get it, he's part iron-lung and part bat. Wonderful.

[Also, these guys look pretty damn white for a bunch of Yeminites. Compare the old man's skin tone to his three 'brothers' in the picture- they're quite the swarthy bunch- much darker than, say, the King of Jordan. And how can the young Grand Master have been "born into" the Breslover sect (source) if his father was Yemini? Wait, even better- apparently Sofer's grandfather- the 5-wife-guy- served in an infantry unit of the Russian Army while on a pilgrimage to Breslov (source). So, was he going from Yemen to Breslov? And where did he hear about Breslov in the first place?

Wait, it gets even better! In ANOTHER interview, Sofer said he was the "scion of a Breslov family that traces its lineage to the brother of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov himself! (source) Ok, let's give Sofer the benefit of the doubt: maybe it's his mother who's descended from Nachman. Or maybe his one of his grandfather's wives (the present GM's ancestor) was descended from Nachman, and that's how the grandfather heard about him. Or maybe the grandfather was part Yeminite and part-descended-from Nachman, and that's why he was a Breslover and on a pilgrimage, and that's how Sofer was "born into" the sect, and why he looks as white as sour cream. Of course, that doesn't quite account for how old Blindy's (half?-)brothers have the complexion of coffee while he looks like an Irishman who's never seen the light of day. But hey, maybe this all a bunch of "I'm authentic because I'm vaguely Arabic and therefore exotic" hooey. Or maybe Sofer's given so many interviews he's forgotten what he's already said.]
Apparently the Abir guys have fallen on hard times, though, which is too bad, because, according to Lazer anyway, the new Grand Master is a really great guy. He can even see; what a catch!
So you should all send him money. Not for himself, but for the sake of the Jewish people and its mysterious, not-quite-existant, possibly-Yemnite-maybe, pseudo-martial art.

Without a backer(s) or sponsor(s), Abir is an endangered species.

Think of your grandchildren, and do the right thing. Do you really want them to live in a world without Abir Warrior Arts?

P.S.

Also, the Abir dudes are sooo cool, a lot of old rabbis used them as bodyguards. Because, you know, if there's one thing 112-year-old Kabbalists who spend almost all their time inside study halls need (besides drool-catchers), it's bodyguards.