A Porat Interview, a Najdorf Quip, and a Nimzowitsch Story

From an interview with Yosef Porat by Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, Ma'ariv, Oct. 19th, 1962, p. 11, brought to our attention by a frequent correspondent:

Botvinnik is very modest and doesn't demand special treatment... Bobby Fischer the American is the exact opposite: incomparably vain, a show-off. Success had gone to his head...

Najdorf lost to Fischer in the [1962] Olympiad. After the game, in which he blundered, I've heard him say: 'I always told myself there's only one chess player I need to fear - Najdorf.'

Nimzowitsch once played in an international tournament against an old English player and got into difficulties. He muttered [in Yiddish]: 'this alter ganef [literally, 'old thief'] tricked me after all...' the English player understood the entire sentence except for the word ganef [thief] but all present didn't want to explain it to him. So finally he asked if a ganef can be a gentleman or not.

The last anecdote was shared by Porat in good faith, but unlike the other two, he was of course not a witness. Is there any proof of the actual occurrence of this 'once' story? 

We are skeptical. First, Nimzowitsch is the subject of quite a few such 'once' stories. Second, the opponent and occasion are not specified. Third, we have read at least one other version. In it, Nimzowitsch himself, and not all present, does not want to explain what ganef means. It is added that he quickly agrees that, yes, a ganef can be a gentleman, calming the English player. 

Keeping the Shabbath

'Sammy Reshevsky -- Three Meals and Dessert'. Ma'ariv, Nov. 9th, 1964, p. 4.

Moshe Roytman notifies us of an unsigned collection of short items from Ma'ariv on the date above, some of them related to the chess Olympiad then taking place in Tel Aviv. It has the following caricature of Reshevsky, by the Ma'ariv caricaturist "Ze'ev" [Ya'akov Farkash, 1928-2002]. 

Farkash was one of the four members of the affectionately called "Hungarian Mafia", a team of four staff members of Ma'ariv who had been in the paper for decades, from the 50s to the 90s. They include himself, the caricaturist "Dosh" (Kariel Gardosh), the journalist Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, and satirist Efraim Kishon. Of them, as we have noted in this blog before, Lapid was inter alia the head of the Israeli Chess Federation, Kishon saved his life during the war by playing chess, and Dosh illustrated covers for chess books; we now add a chess connection for Ze'ev. 

The story is that in the 1964 Olympiad in Tel Aviv, the Saturday round started at 5:30 instead of 4:00, to avoid desecrating the Shabbath (from sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday), but Reshevsky got special permission to start half an hour later than that. It is well known that Reshevsky would not play on the Shabbath and was usually given the option of starting to play after it ended when he played in tournaments. But here all the rounds began later for just this reason. So why would he need an extra half hour? 

The reason given -- how seriously, it is hard to tell -- is that Reshevsky, being a religious Jew, also observed the religious tradition (though not an absolute requirement) of having three holiday meals on the Shabbath, which means he would only be available, not just after the Shabbath had ended at 5:30, but only after he finished his third Shabbath meal. Perhaps; we note, however, that as the Shabbath ended during the time of the Olympiad only a few minutes before 5:30, and religious Jews are not allowed to drive or travel by car, carry money, etc., during the Shabbath, it is likely that it would take Reshevsky a few more minutes to get to the tournament hall from his hotel than a person who does not follow these rules in any case.

The article adds that he played against Ya'akov Mashian  (ne Hushang Mashian) as stated in Gaige's Chess Personalia) and 'of course' won quickly 'as a dessert'. Mashian, a Jew, was playing first board for Iran. He later emigrated to Israel and became an active player there. 

We add that the same issue of Reshevsky and the Shabbath -- including his interesting explanation as to why he does not play on the Shabbath, when playing chess is not in fact (by most authorities) forbidden on the Shabbath, as well as a somewhat similar illustration by Buchwald -- when he came to the 1958 tournament in Israel, as noted here. 

Problemists and Popular Writing

Igal Mosinzon playing chess. Photo credit: Igal Serena [see 2nd link below]

In Moshe Marmorosh's chess column from the 1930s we find, occasionally, rather interesting things that have nothing to do with chess. One of them is that a certain young solver -- "Y. Mosinzon" -- occasionally is acknowledged as a solver. Unless I am very much mistaken, this is the writer Yigal Mosinzon [link in Hebrew], the author of numerous Hebrew books and plays and one of the most important writers of the early decades of the state of Israel.

Apparently, Mosinzon, who died in 1994, kept his love for chess all his life, as can be deduced from the photo above, from the following blog [in Hebrew] by the Israeli writer Yigal Serena, who also notes that Mosinzon would regularly meet with his "good friend Tommy Lapid" to play chess.

He is particularly well known for his play Kazablan [made later into a now-classic movie in Israel, starring Yehoram Ga'on], and above all for a series of children's adventures stories, Hasamba -- the acronym of Havurat Sod Muchlat Be'Hechlet, a tongue-in-cheek title that can be roughly translated as "Gang of the Really Top Secret Secret". It is about a group of children who are, in effect, a commando unit which discovers spies, rescues Israeli soldiers from prison, help IDF special units or Mossad agents accomplish dangerous missions, and the like.

For people of certain generations who grew up in Israel, Hasamba, and the heroes of the series, were as popular and well known as, say, Superman or Batman in the USA. Indeed, Mosinzon wrote the series partially to provide Israeli children with Zionist-themed popular reading, instead of Tarzan or other foreign influences. The series' enormous success was a Pyrrhic victory for Mosinzon: actually a serious writer, Hasamba eclipsed everything else he did, despite the fact that, as the less-than-serious name of the series shows, he never took it too seriously from the literary point of view.

Still, Mosinzon's talent showed even in such popular work. Despite the fact that the heroes fought British or, later, Arab antagonists that were usually stereotypically typecast, there were many individualized and even positive Arab or British characters. Also, the female member of the group -- perhaps due to Mosinzon's exprience in the pre-IDF Palmach para-military organization where women, out of necessity, served in combat roles with men -- is just as brave and active as the boys.

I do not recall offhand any reference to a chracter in Hasamba playing chess -- but perhaps a reader can enlighten me.

Family Connections: Garry Kasparov Interviewed by Yosef Lapid's son, Yair

Kasparov gets top billing: a major interview in Israel's most popular news program, by the interviewer Yair Lapid, the son of the late Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, who was mentioned in this blog quite often. The elder Lapid was a good friend of Kasparov, as well as the head of the Israel Chess Federation (site in Hebrew).

To non-Hebrew speakers, Lapid's pre-interview introduction says, in part: 'The ability to play chess is often considered the most refined intellectual ability there is. If so, we have just interviewed the world's most intelligent man -- Garry Kasparov'. One wonders how much of this is Lapid fils' view and how much is Lapid pere's; in any case a very reliable source (who wishes to remain anonymous) told me that Yair Lapid was, as a young man at least, quite a talented amateur.

The interview itself is in English.