More on Prime Ministers and Chess

Yitzhak Shamir. Source: Wikipedia Commons.

How many prime ministers do you know who would spend time answering questions by an author of a chess book? Yizthak Shamir did just that. Of course, it helped that the author -- Shlomo Kandelshine -- was writing a book about Menachem Oren, who came from the same town (Rozana, in northern Poland) as Shamir. Shamir was younger than Oren (by thirteen years), but knew Oren's family well. Says Shamir:

He [Oren] was excellent in mathematics, and the best polish chess player. Whenever there were tournaments he played in, we looked in Rozana for his score in the newspapers.

Source: Kandelshine's Oren Ba'Tsameret: Dr. Menachem Oren, Aluf ha'Sachmat ha'Rishon shel Medinat Israel [On the Top: Dr. Menachem Oren, the first Chess Champion of Israel], pp. 12-13. Tel Aviv: Reshafim Press, 1989.