Shabtai Teveth and Chess

Source: Ha'Aretz, Nov. 15th, 1960, p. 2

Our frequent correspondent found what we think is a forgotten article by a major Israeli historial and author - Shabtai Teveth - about Israeli chess. The entire article (in Hebrew of course) is found here. 

In the article, Teveth notes that, as an outsider, the only different he noticed between the Israeli and the other teams is that while Israel's team consistent entirely of Jews, the other teams were only mostly Jewish - and that if the Israeli team had a non-Jewish Israeli player, 'the difference would disappear'.

Teveth adds that it seems to him odd that Israelis celebrate Israel's achievement in the 1960 Olympiad - 14th place - when chess is a 'Jewish game' and Israel should be expected to do better. He notes that this seems to him a sign of the lack of progress Israel had made in 'field of the spirit', and fears that if this is the best Israel can do, then it might prove Zionism had 'weakened, and not strengthened' the spiritual force of the Jewish people.

Teveth is far from being an anti-Zionist. On the contrary: he believes that it is essential, as part of the improvement, to continue to strengthen Zionism, and not see Zionism's job as finished now that it had created the Jewish state. Rather, if one is to move the spiritual center of the Jewish people to Israel,  emigration to Israel of the Jews - such as the Jewish players on foreign teams - is necessary, and this can be done only by instilling the Zionist ideal strongly in the world's Jewry.