Sitting in a bomb shelter in Hadera with his wife and children, Yakov Schacht cannot use his 40 years of ninjutsu martial arts practice to deal with the situation physically.
“A front roll or side kick won’t help,” he says with a laugh. “You sit in the bunker and hope the missile won’t hit you.”
However, he finds the mentality behind ninjutsu – which also forms the basis of his Shinobi Leadership Coaching business (www.linkedin.com/in/shinobi-leadership) – invaluable and instructive in these scary times.
“A few weeks ago, while I was on Zoom, coaching the chief director of one of the largest banks in south Germany about the importance of emotional regulation, we got an alarm here,” Schacht relates.
“I said to him, ‘We have to postpone the call for about half an hour, and we’ll resume if I survive – and if not, I won’t bill you for that hour.’ For most Europeans, the whole world collapses when they lose their car keys, so when they see that you can remain calm even under missile attack, it radiates a model they can emulate.”
Born into a non-religious Christian family with Jewish roots, Schacht had his curiosity about Judaism piqued in his teens, influenced by his ninjutsu instructor.
“I had been learning about Shintoism and other Asian philosophies, and I was surprised to find the same ideas, often more easily relatable or deeper, or more applicable to real life, in Judaism,” he says. His conversion to Judaism took place about 25 years ago.
Schacht is a man of many interests and talents. He trained natural healers, doctors, and physical therapists at his Osteopathic Institute Hamburg, which he sold when he left Germany seven years ago.
He pivoted to leadership coaching, working with clients that included top-tier German and Swiss politicians, corporate and banking executives in Germany and France, and many doctors and dentists. His approach mirrors the Shinobi philosophy of Japanese martial arts, with its stress on endurance, adaptability, mental calmness, and strategic intelligence.
“There are moments in life that demand the inner power to take clear, decisive actions, whether in self-defense or in your personal or professional life,” he explains. “In today’s world, the ability to stay stable under extreme pressure is of primary essence.”
And so, when Schacht and his wife, Shterny, experienced escalating antisemitism in their upscale Hamburg neighborhood, they decided to leave for Israel, despite the difficulties that surely lay ahead.
“When I was a young man, I visited Israel and fell in love. I always planned to move here, but life got in the way. Then, when our first son was small, we had moments when new Turkish and Arab immigrants in the area yelled ‘Heil Hitler’ at us,” he recalls.
“I worked for seven years as a bouncer in a nightclub, and I have 40 years of martial arts experience, so I’m not a scaredy-cat. But we understood it was not safe for our son to play in the street wearing a kippah and tzitzit. This is not a dignified way of life, and definitely not a way for our children to grow up. And it got worse very quickly. The deterioration of values, both on the Left and the Right in Germany, is shocking.”
Schacht’s oldest son from a previous marriage, now 28, had already made aliyah and served in the Paratroopers. The couple joined him here in 2019. They now have five children – a son, 11, and daughters aged nine, five, three, and one and a half. Schacht also has a 26-year-old son who runs a martial arts academy in Germany.
From martial arts to life under fire
“For me, moving to Israel is simply a geographic continuation of a philosophy that I implement also in the self-defense world and in the business world. Navigating life in a new country requires adaptive intelligence, strength, and flexibility. When I work with high-impact leaders in Germany, this is what I teach,” says Schacht.
“Daily life in Israel serves as a case study for what I provide in strategic coaching in the boardroom. If you can regulate yourself here, you can do it anywhere.”
The health-conscious and ecologically oriented family is pleased with the Chabad elementary school in Hadera and the “open and embracing” vibe of local residents, as well as the coastal nature of their surroundings.
“Despite the fact that I’m religious, I’m a beach and surfing guy, and the beaches here are beautiful,” Schacht notes.
When sirens send the Schachts to the shelter at the synagogue next door, both parents handle the situation with the kind of equanimity that Schacht teaches others to attain.
“If I would be devastated and emotionally unregulated, the kids would feel that,” he says. “So we stay relaxed and take the kids to the shelter calmly, with a smile. We let them watch movies and make it as normal as possible under such circumstances.”
Schacht would advise new immigrants to keep four key things in mind:
1. “Anticipate failure. The more agile you are, the more willing you are to learn and go with the flow, the easier things will be in a different continent, culture, and language. Recognize that things can go wrong and still be nice.”
2. “If the current version of yourself is to continue evolving physically, emotionally, and spiritually, you’ve got to let go of certain things and be open to new things.”
3. “Immerse yourself in the culture. Be part of it and accept it. Eat the food, ask stupid questions, speak Hebrew and be corrected. You’ll be the odd person for a short period of time, but that’s the only way you’ll become Israeli.”
4. “Remember that not everything about where you came from was perfect, and it’s not perfect here, either. My wife recently joked, ‘Sometimes Israel is like that relative you really love but sometimes is annoying, and you love him anyway.’”
Schacht relates that recently he celebrated Shabbat in the company of Russian and French immigrants.
“Our grandfathers, despite being Jewish, probably tried to kill each other in the first World War.
There used to be a strong hatred between the French and Germans. Nowadays, my kids don’t even know the concept of why a French person would hate a German person. So maybe there’s a chance for us and the Arabs.
“I just want love, peace, and happiness, and I see that most people in this country want the same.”■
Yakov Schacht, 54,
From Hamburg, Germany,
to Hadera, 2019
