Nice Photo of Porat

Source: Chess Review, August 1964, p. 249.

The following photo of Yosef Porat (variant English spellings, as one can see, abound) was brought to our attention by Herbert Halsegger. We note that the same page has the game Gligoric-Porat, where Porat won due to Gligoric's blunder. It happens to us all...

Orang-Utan

 

Source: Chess Review, Sept. 1964, p. 276

Mr. Halsegger also notifies us that, in the same issue noted in the previous post, there was also the following game from "Haifa, 1962." This could not be the Israeli championship (which took place in odd years) nor, of course, the olympiad, and the names of the players are not those of any of the masters in Israel at the time. Presumably, this was a game in a local tournament. Can any reader provide more details?

Chess Olympiad Package

Source: Chess Review, Sept. 1964, p. 258.

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us that Chess Review had a full-page advertisement for a round-trip visit to Israel for the chess olympiad of 1964. Are there any other examples of such "package deals"? 

Right to Left

 

Source: Doar Ha'yom, 17 September 1922, p. 4

A frequent correspondent sends us a note of Doar Ha'yom's column from the early 1920s. A specific point of interest is that, as we have noted before, the chess notation was from right to left, with the first Hebrew letter (aleph) donating the h-file, not the a-file, the second Hebrew letter (bet) the g-file, etc. 

Naturally, this caused significant confusion! 

(Not) Being There

Itzhak Aloni. Full credits and details at this post.

A close family member mentioned, from the days of the old Lasker club in Tel Aviv, what must have been a common occurrence among chess players. The club had a small kitchenette / cafe, where members could buy tea and coffee. For the older, constant club members, such as Aloni, the kitchenette's owner would also offer meals - cooked by the cafe owner's wife in their apartment next door. 

The kitchenette also had the club's phone. One day the owner comes out of it and asks Aloni: "are you here? Your wife asks." Aloni said that he was not there. The owner goes back to the phone, returns and tells Aloni: "Your wife says that, when you finish not playing the game, come home." 

Wartime Chess

Source: Jabotinsky Institute in Israel

A frequent correspondent notes the following picture in the Jabotinsky Institute's archives. It is photo #6582, from 1943 Italy, showing "an international chess tourney with the participation of Jewish soldiers from England, Palestine, and Poland." Note the wartime "We shall win" (in Hebrew) poster on the wall, featuring Churchill.

Uzi Geller, 1931-2024

 

Credit: Almog Burstein.

The late Uzi Geller, Israeli champion (1971) and member of the Israeli chess olympiad team (1972), had passed away at the age of 93, as I was notified by the Israeli Chess Advancement Center, managed by Almog Burstein. Burstein's email added a link to a long obituary (in Hebrew) in a blog by those who knew him well.

Geller is typical of his time: he lived in a kibbutz all his life, and got his start in chess in the "glory days" of the communal settlements' chess "boom" of the 1950s and (especially) 1960s.

Schahmuseum

The Chilean museum of pre-Colombian art. Credit: wikipedia.

Mr. Halsegger notifies us of the Chess Museum in Switzerland, which is well worth a visit. It has many Jewish-ralted items, such as a Jewish-themed glass chess set and a set created in Auschwitz. 

Chess Gift

Credit: Jewish Museum, Vienna

The above chess set, a gift to captain William H. Barker, was presented in 1947 to him by those whom he took care of in a DP camp after the second world war. It is found on the Facebook site of the Jewish Museum in Vienna, as Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us.