Chess, the Musical

 

Image credit: CHESS | Official Broadway Site

Chess - the musical - is enjoying a revival on Broadway right now. Reviews seem mixed. The New Criterion's review (February 2026, by Karl Smith) notes that "its story has always been a clunker despite many attempts at reworking it over the past forty years. And yet it continues to thrive because of its many top-notch songs." Certainly the songs, as Edward Winter notes in his review, are the high point.  

Smith considers the lyrics themselves "flat" because the story is a clunker, but "Ulvaeus and Andersson exhibited a thrilling breadth, saluting Italian opera in “Merano” and devising the appropriately soaring and well-titled “Anthem.”" 

Not knowing much about chess history, Smith misses much of the subtlety of the lyrics, with their many ironic references to chess history, fables about its origin, famous players, and so on. But while such knowledge is necessary for fully appreciating the songs, the lyrics are not obscure or insulting - or "flat" - to the general audience. Rice, after all, was not writing the musical for the exclusive enjoyment of chess historians! 

Smith's bottom line? "In an era when most Broadway shows fail to deliver even one memorable number, Chess offers easily half a dozen. Intermingled with the soggy drama is an enthralling concert." Agreed about the memorable songs; as for the "soggy drama," I quote Winter again for the defense: Chess is "no less ‘fun’ than earlier musicals about such rib-tickling subjects as Argentine dictators and crucifixions." 

Perhaps it's significant that it is just these two musicals (Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) that Smith compares to Chess in his review. He thinks that in all three the plot is a mere excuse for the musical numbers. But even if they are, all three also deserve their success for their memorable songs alone. 

Unexpected Discoveries

 

Aron Nimzowitsch. Credit: Wikipedia.

Sometimes chess discoveries just happen. A close relative (who shall remain nameless for privacy reasons) regularly visits an old woman (ditto) every second weekend. The old woman keeps speaking about how she had a "famous chess player" in her family. 

Since "famous" and "chess player" are very relative terms - especially when, as in this case, the old woman is from Eastern Europe - I paid no particular attention but asked the relative to ask on her next visit, just in case. 

The relative sent me a message the other day. "He was her grandmother's brother. He had a weird name... something like 'Nimzowitsch'?! Does that mean anything to you?" The relative also mentioned the old women showed her a book the player wrote, in case that helps me out. 

The Second(?) Jewish Chess Periodical

Source and details: see below

Our correspondent, Terje Kristiansen, notes that the latest (February 2025) 64 has a very interesting article about a discovery by Ilya Pechenin: "Unfinished Opening: The First Chess Newspaper in Yiddish." (pp. 86-89). The front page of the first issue is reproduced above, taken from p. 86. 

This seems to be indeed an important discovery. Keats' Chess in Jewish History and Hebrew Literature ends in 1840, and the first newspaper column (as opposed to magazine) in Hebrew, to our knowledge, is from 1888, and this magazine is not that long afterwards. However, as it is from 1913 (as Pechenin notes) another Yiddish-language magazine - which only lasted one issue - must take the prize. 

It was published in New York in 1906, and was published by Charles Jaffe, as discovered a while ago by our frequent correspondent, Moshe Roytman. The details can be found at the end of Edward Winter's feature article about Jaffe, or in Chess Notes #11875. 

More on Chess Caricatures in Israel

Our frequent correspondent, Philip Jurgens, had pointed out a few mistakes in our previous post about caricatures. We use this post to thank him, and to note a few more points about chess and caricatures in Israel. 

Unsurprisingly, in Israel, a country in a constant state of political and military turmoil, caricatures about chess deal almost exclusively with political or military issues, where the players are politicians, generals, or figures representing Israel or other nations. 

For example, from Ha'aretz, we have the following caricature (by Amos Biderman) illustrating an article by Yossi Klein (28 May, 2025) about Netanyahu's political dilemma with the IDF generals (the piece he is holding) and his right-wing coalition partner, Itamar Ben Gvir (on the board):

Or, here, a caricature of a "simultaneous game" by Shlomo Cohen (1 February 2024) for Israel Ha'yom, with Netanyahu playing both against Hamas and Ben-Gvir: 

Shlomo Cohen, incidentally, is apparently a chess player, as the chess motif is often seen in his caricatures. For example, one caricature has Netanyahu as the king and everybody else as a pawn in the Likud conference (Netanyahu's party); another has Trump starting a simultaneous game with the middle east leaders - with the boards set up correctly, the single player playing white, and both the board's orientation and the pieces being set up correctly...

Dr. Moritz Lewitt

 

Source: Weiner Shachzeitung, December 1907, p. 409

Our frequent correspondent Herbert Halsegger notifies us of his research finding about the Jewish player and composer Dr. Moritz Lewitt (link in German). His best rating was 2427 (Berlin, 1891). This rating would not be that high today, but, as Edward Winter notes in his (devastating) review of Warriors of the Mind, ratings favor the moderns, and in any case comparison between generations is at unreliable. At any rate he was strong enough to co-author a book with (fellow Jew) Mieses.

To all this Mr. Halsegger also adds the picture above, where Lewitt (no. 2) is standing next to the young Spielmann (no. 4). He was not a player in the tournament in question (the Jubilee tournament of the Berlin Chess Association) but, as the caption to the photo notes, as the chairman of the association. 

Yemenite Metalwork Set

 

Our frequent correspondent Terje Kristiansen had sent us photos of the following interesting chess set. It is, to the best of his collecting friend's knowledge, an example of Jewish Yemenite sculpturing in metal wire. They ask why the king and queen seem identical. 

It seems likely that the answer is one of two: either the set is for decoration so the exact replication of distinct pieces was less important, or the artist, presumably a Yemenite Jew from Israel and therefore likely an observant Jew, didn't want to sculpture the traditional cross on top of the king. 

Edited to add: as Mr. Ole Drønen, the collector, and others noted in a correction to me, one can in fact tell the difference between the king and the queen, and the cross has little to do with it. It is simply a French Régence set, which has no cross on the king. Dronen then adds:

Here are two pictures that maybe show the difference between the king and the queen better. The piece to the left is the king... There are many other variants of the style, and they were made in many countries in Europe and for a very long time...But Régence pieces became much less common when Staunton pieces became the international standard in 1924. 

The style was also used in other parts of the world for a long time, especially in French influenced areas. Kings with a cross is primarily connected to Staunton sets. Also other styles could have a king with a cross, but most other European and English styles normally featured kings without a cross.

We thank Dronen for the additional information and the correction.

Sylvester and Chess

 

James Joseph Sylvester. Credit: Wikipedia.

It is interesting to note that the famed mathematician Sylvester (1814-1897) was, first, Jewish, and - what is less known - a chess fan. We read in Eric Temple Bell's article, "Invariant Twins, Cayley and Sylvester" (The World of Mathematics, by James R. Newman (ed.), New York, Simon & Schuster: 1956, vol. 1, pp. 341-365), we read:

After his retirement from Woolwich Sylvester lived in London, versifying, reading the classics, playing chess, and enjoying himself generally, but not doing much mathematics.

Bell's comment does not imply Sylvester was a strong player, but at least it is known publicly that he played chess. Does anybody know more about this? It should be noted that a quick internet search found Sylvester's own address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1869) noting:

a very clever writer in a recent magazine article, expresses his doubts whether it is, in itself, a more serious pursuit, or more worthy of interesting an intellectual human being, than the study of chess problems or Chinese puzzles.

The rest of the lecture shows that Sylvester, unsurprisingly, consider mathematics much more important - as his audience also undoubtably did - but it is not clear whether he expects them to consider chess problems unimportant.  

Graves of Chess Masters: Arnold Schottländer

Credit: Wikipedia.

Our frequent correspondent, Herbert Halsegger, notes the following amusing article (in German) about the chess master Arnold Schottländer and his amusing game against "Gustav the Crusher," a coffee-house player, which ended in a nice queen sacrifice:

1...Qh1+ 2.Kxh1 2.Nxf2++ Kg1 3.Nh3#. 

Inter alia, the article has a photo of Schottländer's grave, with the statement, "his body was weak, but his spirit was strong."

Smyslov Jewish? Some Thoughts

 
Smyslov in 1977. Credit: Wikipedia.

In Genna Sosonko's Smyslov on the Couch, brought to my attention by Ilan Rubin and Terje Kristiansen, we read (pp. 30-31): 

I’ve always been received with the utmost respect, no matter where I’ve gone, be it Israel or the Arab world. I don’t get too worked up over those ethnic matters. One time, I got a call from the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia; they were putting together a list of famous Jews. They asked me the same question about my mother. I answered it the way I always do: ‘Seems like I have some Jewish blood, but I can’t say for sure.’ They said, ‘if you don’t know for sure, then we can’t include you on the list.’ Unlike Botvinnik, I have no reason to take pride in my heritage. But you know, Genna, none of this evser really interested me anyway.”

Let’s stop dwelling on the 7th world chess champion’s ethnic background. That isn’t the point. Neither is Boris Spassky sometimes calling him by and mispronouncing his patronymic, “Vasilievich, Vasilievich, what a smart Jewish mind you have!” when the two of them analyzed positions together. Nor is Smyslov asking Neishtadt: “Could you buy me two mezuzahs, Yakov? I don’t feel comfortable buying them myself,” when he went to Israel. Nor even is the fact that he looked like a biblical prophet, straight out of a Rembrandt painting, during the last few years of his life.

This all seems straightforward: Smyslov might have had some Jewish ancestry, as he himself acknowledged, but didn't consider himself Jewish, and wasn't particularly interested in the issue either way. Case closed. 

However, why would Smyslov, in that case, ask Neishtadt to buy him two mezuzahs? A mezuzhah - literally, "doorpost" - is a piece of parchment of certain sections of the Torah, put in a small cylindrical case, which Jews put on the doors of their houses. It would very likely not be bought by anyone who is not Jewish or perhaps wants to give it to close Jewish relatives. A mezuzah would be perfectly useless for a non-Jew and would not be bought just because one has Jewish ancestry. It is also by no means a typical souvenir or gift one would buy on a visit to the holy land. Therefore, if someone is buying a mezuzah, let alone two, it is likely they either consider themselves Jewish - or have close Jewish friends or relatives - and want to fix a mezuzah in their door. 

Is this absolute proof Smyslov was, so to speak, more Jewish than he admitted to publicly? No: if nothing else, Smyslov might have been buying the mezuzahs at the request of Jewish friends back home who were not related to him. But it should also be noted, in favor of the claim that Smyslov was Jewish that, unlike Sosonko's other examples - all of which are examples of other people claiming Smyslov is Jewish, or asking if he is - here we have Smyslov himself acting in a "Jewish" way.