New Year's Resolution

Source: here.

My news year resolution: to continue updating this blog more regularly, and finally -- finally -- finish the history work I have been doing for many years.

All I can say in my defense is quote Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the famous English dictionary, was praised for the immense amount of work that he put into it. He told Boswell, his biographer, that he was very lazy: he did his dictionary in ten years, while, if he had applied himself regularly, he could have done it in three.

If Sam Johnson could be lazy, I have at least some excuse...

Chess Posters

Source: The NLI

In Israel, it was common until the 1970s (at least) to advertise chess tournaments on posters which were posted on official notice boards in cities. Here is one for the 1969 (15th) Tel Aviv Championship, officially, the Abraham Labounsky memorial tournament. It includes both the "old guard" -- Czerniak, Aloni, Blass, Smiltiner -- and the "new blood", such as Bobis, Stepak, and 'ten talented youths'.

More Games and Updates

Source: Palestine Post, March 16th, 1945, p. 6

As the war was drawing to a close, the Palestine Post (later, the Jerusalem Post) started publishing the first English-language chess column in Palestine since 1918. It covered inter alia the Palestine Championship, then taking place in the "Lasker" club in Tel Aviv. Above is a nice victory by Barav (then Rabinovich, also spelled in English with slight variations) over Aloni. Incidentally, Barav's memorial site, was recently updated. Thanks to Ami Barav for supplying me with the information. 

Chess with a Dragon

Source: here

For the "Chess in Art" file, we have the following book by David Gerrold. The book does not in fact feature chess, but uses "chess" as a metaphor for political intrigue between different races in a galaxy.