Dr. Moritz Lewitt

 

Source: Weiner Shachzeitung, December 1907, p. 409

Our frequent correspondent Herbert Halsegger notifies us of his research finding about the Jewish player and composer Dr. Moritz Lewitt (link in German). His best rating was 2427 (Berlin, 1891). This rating would not be that high today, but, as Edward Winter notes in his (devastating) review of Warriors of the Mind, ratings favor the moderns, and in any case comparison between generations is at unreliable. At any rate he was strong enough to co-author a book with (fellow Jew) Mieses.

To all this Mr. Halsegger also adds the picture above, where Lewitt (no. 2) is standing next to the young Spielmann (no. 4). He was not a player in the tournament in question (the Jubilee tournament of the Berlin Chess Association) but, as the caption to the photo notes, as the chairman of the association. 

Yemenite Metalwork Set

 

Our frequent correspondent Terje Kristiansen had sent us photos of the following interesting chess set. It is, to the best of his collecting friend's knowledge, an example of Jewish Yemenite sculpturing in metal wire. They ask why the king and queen seem identical. 

It seems likely that the answer is one of two: either the set is for decoration so the exact replication of distinct pieces was less important, or the artist, presumably a Yemenite Jew from Israel and therefore likely an observant Jew, didn't want to sculpture the traditional cross on top of the king. 

Sylvester and Chess

 

James Joseph Sylvester. Credit: Wikipedia.

It is interesting to note that the famed mathematician Sylvester (1814-1897) was, first, Jewish, and - what is less known - a chess fan. We read in Eric Temple Bell's article, "Invariant Twins, Cayley and Sylvester" (The World of Mathematics, by James R. Newman (ed.), New York, Simon & Schuster: 1956, vol. 1, pp. 341-365), we read:

After his retirement from Woolwich Sylvester lived in London, versifying, reading the classics, playing chess, and enjoying himself generally, but not doing much mathematics.

Bell's comment does not imply Sylvester was a strong player, but at least it is known publicly that he played chess. Does anybody know more about this? It should be noted that a quick internet search found Sylvester's own address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1869) noting:

a very clever writer in a recent magazine article, expresses his doubts whether it is, in itself, a more serious pursuit, or more worthy of interesting an intellectual human being, than the study of chess problems or Chinese puzzles.

The rest of the lecture shows that Sylvester, unsurprisingly, consider mathematics much more important - as his audience also undoubtably did - but it is not clear whether he expects them to consider chess problems unimportant.  

Graves of Chess Masters: Arnold Schottländer

Credit: Wikipedia.

Our frequent correspondent, Herbert Halsegger, notes the following amusing article (in German) about the chess master Arnold Schottländer and his amusing game against "Gustav the Crusher," a coffee-house player, which ended in a nice queen sacrifice:

1...Qh1+ 2.Kxh1 2.Nxf2++ Kg1 3.Nh3#. 

Inter alia, the article has a photo of Schottländer's grave, with the statement, "his body was weak, but his spirit was strong."

Smyslov Jewish? Some Thoughts

 
Smyslov in 1977. Credit: Wikipedia.

In Genna Sosonko's Smyslov on the Couch, brought to my attention by Ilan Rubin and Terje Kristiansen, we read (pp. 30-31): 

I’ve always been received with the utmost respect, no matter where I’ve gone, be it Israel or the Arab world. I don’t get too worked up over those ethnic matters. One time, I got a call from the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia; they were putting together a list of famous Jews. They asked me the same question about my mother. I answered it the way I always do: ‘Seems like I have some Jewish blood, but I can’t say for sure.’ They said, ‘if you don’t know for sure, then we can’t include you on the list.’ Unlike Botvinnik, I have no reason to take pride in my heritage. But you know, Genna, none of this evser really interested me anyway.”

Let’s stop dwelling on the 7th world chess champion’s ethnic background. That isn’t the point. Neither is Boris Spassky sometimes calling him by and mispronouncing his patronymic, “Vasilievich, Vasilievich, what a smart Jewish mind you have!” when the two of them analyzed positions together. Nor is Smyslov asking Neishtadt: “Could you buy me two mezuzahs, Yakov? I don’t feel comfortable buying them myself,” when he went to Israel. Nor even is the fact that he looked like a biblical prophet, straight out of a Rembrandt painting, during the last few years of his life.

This all seems straightforward: Smyslov might have had some Jewish ancestry, as he himself acknowledged, but didn't consider himself Jewish, and wasn't particularly interested in the issue either way. Case closed. 

However, why would Smyslov, in that case, ask Neishtadt to buy him two mezuzahs? A mezuzhah - literally, "doorpost" - is a piece of parchment of certain sections of the Torah, put in a small cylindrical case, which Jews put on the doors of their houses. It would very likely not be bought by anyone who is not Jewish or perhaps wants to give it to close Jewish relatives. A mezuzah would be perfectly useless for a non-Jew and would not be bought just because one has Jewish ancestry. It is also by no means a typical souvenir or gift one would buy on a visit to the holy land. Therefore, if someone is buying a mezuzah, let alone two, it is likely they either consider themselves Jewish - or have close Jewish friends or relatives - and want to fix a mezuzah in their door. 

Is this absolute proof Smyslov was, so to speak, more Jewish than he admitted to publicly? No: if nothing else, Smyslov might have been buying the mezuzahs at the request of Jewish friends back home who were not related to him. But it should also be noted, in favor of the claim that Smyslov was Jewish that, unlike Sosonko's other examples - all of which are examples of other people claiming Smyslov is Jewish, or asking if he is - here we have Smyslov himself acting in a "Jewish" way. 

More on Alekhine's Reasons for Cancelling his Planned Palestine Visit

 

Alexander Alekhine. Credit: Wikipedia.

It is known that Alekhine had planned to visit Palestine in his world tour of 1931/2, as noted for example here, to give only a post from this blog. Now, Terje Kristiansen notifies me that Sergey Voronkov had notified him that the complete details why Alekhine cancelled his visit to Palestine (and some other places) were given by Alekhine himself upon his return to Paris, as noted in the Poslednie Novosti of 4 July 1933: 

It was terribly hot in the Dutch Indies. I stayed there for three weeks and gave 12 exhibitions. Long journeys on stuffy, dirty trains. And it was this, not the playing, that tired me. Worse, I learned something I'd never experienced before. I completely lost sleep. Java and Sumatra had left me in such a state that the doctor who examined me demanded that I interrupt my tour and, above all, rest. “I did just that, and although I stopped in Colombo, Bombay, Egypt, it was as a tourist, without playing anywhere…”

This, and the fact that Alekhine cancelled not just his Palestine stop but others as well, is some evidence that Alekhine was not an ideological antisemite, at least not during that time. 

Indeed, Johannes Fischer suggests - based on the extensive work of Christian Rohrer - that one of Alekhine's major motivations to cooperate with the Nazis is to retain his position at the top of the chess world. In particular, Rohrer notes that Alekhine was also a member of the Freemasons, in fact a member of the same Paris lodge as Ossip Bernstein. It goes without saying that both the Jews (like Bernstein) and the Freemasons were deeply hated by the Nazis. 

When the evidence is so conflicting, one should do well to follow Edward Winter's advice, quoted in "Was Alekhine a Nazi?" that "a good historian knows when to be a waverer." Still, on balance I (tentatively) agree with Rohrer. 

Jews vs. Russians

Source: Jewish Western Bulletin, 4 January 1946

Our correspondent Terje Kristiansen notes the following Facebook post from the Jewish Chess Encyclopedia page, by Jorge Njegovic Drndak. Mr. Kristiansen notes that it is a defeat of a Russian team - that of Russian naval officers visiting Vancouver, that is! 

Chess Still Life, Palestine, 1930s

 

Source: here.

Our frequent correspondent, Herbert Halsegger, notifies us of the Jewish photographer, Herbert Sonnenfeld (1906-1972), who photographed many Jewish subjects in his career, ranging from Germany to Palestine to New York. Here is a still life of chess pieces, taken according to source in "Palestine, between 1933 to 1938," presumably the dates in which Sonnenfeld was in Palestine, after leaving Germany and before coming to New York. It is a rare case of chess as a subject of an artistic photograph during this time in Palestine. 

Smart but Ugly Jews

 

Richard Réti. Credit: wikipedia.

Edward Winter just noted, in CN #12212, that Réti’s obituary in the Evening Standard (all exact details in the link to Chess Notes) included describing him as "a very ugly man, but with very luminous eyes." Winter rightly describes decrying a player's looks as "bad form." 

I add that Winter's own article about Olga Capablanca Clark has her noting her husband's relationship with a Jewish friend in the following words: "Mr Fliegelman, we called him Fligu, was perhaps Capa’s most intimate friend, and probably Capa’s favorite one, for he was indeed completely devoted to Capa. Fligu was a typical Russian Jew, rather ungoodlooking but possessing tremendous charm, and it was impossible not to like him."

I suggest that in the case of both Réti and of Fliegelman, the authors were influenced, perhaps unconsciously, by the old stereotype about Jews being ugly and cunning, a stereotype that goes back to the Middle Ages. In both these cases, the stereotype appears in a mild form: the intelligence or charm of the Jewish person is seen, not as a sign of dishonestly, but rather as a compensation for their outward looks! 

This goes to show how deeply stereotypes can be embedded in society. Even when the intention is simply to describe or even compliment the Jewish person, and, if anything, to caution against judging a person by their outward looks, the stereotype of the "smart but ugly" Jews is to be found.