By Jack Moore. (Israeli Wins Women’s World Thai Boxing Title). An Israeli woman who lives in a settlement on the outskirts of Hebron has won the Women’s World Thai-Boxing Championship in Thailand.
Israeli Wins Women’s World Thai Boxing Title
Sarah Avraham, from the settlement of Kiryat Arba in Judea, overcame her Brazilian opponent to become the world champion. She had previously won the Israeli championship as well.
Avraham, 20, was born in Mumbai before she and her family converted to Judaism and emigrated to Israel in 2008.
Her family fled Mumbai after the terror attack on Chabad House in 2008 where her father’s two friends were murdered in the incident.
It was in Israel that Avraham began to learn Muay Thai boxing, winning the Israeli championship a year later.
Besides training five times a week as part of her thai boxing schedule, Avraham also volunteers as a local firewoman where she has participated in scores of firefighting operations.
Avraham wants to continue thai boxing after her success but has other plans for the future too.
“When I grow up, I might want to be a doctor, like my father,” she told Maariv. She also wants to turn her hobby into a professional endeavour, eventually becoming a full-time firewoman.
However, as reigning champion of the world, Avraham is likely to stick to muay thai for the time being.
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Israeli Wins Women’s World Thai Boxing Title.
Sara Avraham, 18, trains five times a week in a room filled with sweaty men.
The rest of the week, she lives and studies at a girls-only religious school in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Avraham says her religion doesn’t usually allow her to touch men or be alone with them, a rule she respects when she is not doing her favorite sport – Muay Thai kickboxing.
But when she boxes, she is happy to get close and kick men as much as needed. She says she actually prefers to train with men because she feels she increases her strength by boxing with physically stronger opponents.
The training paid off in March this year, when she became the Muay Thai kickboxing world champion in Thailand. She won the title for the 16-19 years-old, 60-63 kilograms division.
She says there is no contradiction between her religious principles and sport.
[Sara Avraham, Muay Thai Kickboxing World Champion]:
“Here I am doing something that.. I am focused more. I am not, my mind isn’t on, on nonsense. It’s on seriousness, like I am working hard. And these are people who respect me, they are my friends. So… I feel I am not doing anything wrong. It’s not contradictory at all.”
Avraham is a settler living in Kyriat Arba, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank’s area C — the 60 percent of the West Bank which is under Israeli control.
Born in India to a Hindu father and a Christian mother, the family converted to Judaism in 2005. They left India after the rabbi who converted the family, rabbi Gaviel Noack, was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
She says the Jewish religion helped her become the champion she is today.
[Sara Avraham, Muay Thai Kickboxing World Champion]:
“Praying, it’s meditation, it helps you focus, it helps you concentrate. And keeping the Shabbat, you know, you have a day of rest, you don’t work out, you don’t, you don’t tire yourself, overtire yourself. It’s a day to relax. And, and… there are many other thing. Kosher, kashrut laws like… We don’t eat food like non-kosher food but the food that we eat you know is healthy, it has to be clean, and many ways…. Then also like discipline, just plain discipline, just like values, manners, ethics. It helps a lot.”
Block, also 18, moved to Israel from Baltimore, United States, when she was two years old. Her father is an Orthodox Jew and she too goes to a girls-only religious school.
Block became Muay Thai kickboxing champion in the 52-56 kilograms division in Thailand, a title later confirmed in Hungary.
She says religion shouldn’t prevent anyone from doing what one likes.
[Nili Block, Muay Thai Kickboxing World Champion]:
“Everyone finds their own way in religion. And there are the extreme people who are, who take it over the top. But I think everyone can find their own path in religion.”
For now, Avraham and Block are preparing for the next tournament set to take place in the Ukraine in August this year.
Israeli Wins Women’s World Thai Boxing Title
