Books and Magazines

Above we see two ways in which Marmorosh's chess column in Davar became a de facto clearing house for all matters concerning chess in Palestine. In the mid to late 30s, apparently a drip of foreign chess publications began to reach Palestine, and Marmorosh was the go-between. In both the above, typical, extracts from his column from the late 30s, we see this.

The first -- brought to our attention by our correspondent Moshe Roytman -- is from April 15th, 1938. It advertises two books (Championship Chess by P. J. Sergeant and Max Euwe by Hans Kmoch), and adds (the last paragraph) that 'large publishers now often send their books to the chess department's management [i.e., Marmorosh himself -- A. P.] for it to advertise. Some publishers noted their willingness to give a discount to those who order from Palestine'. This surely make economic sense -- publishers giving discounts to enter a new market, once they discovered it exists.

We note that the same occurred with magazines. The bottom selection, from Nov. 26th, 1937, notes that one can buy copies of the British magazine Chess at the 'newspaper kiosk next to Davar, and that those who wish to buy a subscription to 'immediatelly contact the chess department's management'.