Israel's top-ranking chess player aims to change the way Israelis look at the game.
By ANAV SILVERMANOne win at a time (photo credit: Reuters)
It is an evening filled with good food and music at a classy venue in Tel Aviv. People are chatting excitedly in Russian and Hebrew, and the name Boris frequently comes up in conversation. Minimagnetic chessboards have been set up on each candlelit table. Several guests note that the chess pieces have been set up incorrectly and amusedly rearrange the pieces.However – although there are many expert chess players present – no one is actually going to play a game of chess tonight.The Israel Chess Federation, the organization central to the country’s chess culture, organized the evening at the Tel Aviv National Sports Center to pay tribute to the country’s top-ranking chess player, Boris Gelfand.Gelfand recently gained much media publicity when he came in second place to world champion Viswanathan Anand of India in the FIDE World Chess Championship in Moscow in May. The Israeli grandmaster spent three weeks battling his way against chess players from around the world. Fans in both Israel and Russia followed Gelfand’s game closely, including Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who later called Gelfand to congratulate him.In the final tie-breaking match against Anand, Gelfand lost by one point, but earned the admiration and respect of countless Israelis, many of whom watched the match live on the Sports Channel at home.In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, the modest Gelfand explains that when he first began playing chess as a five-year-old, he would never have imagined that one day chess would become his profession.“It was tradition among Jewish families in the former Soviet Union to teach children how to play chess and play music. My first chess teacher was actually my father,” he says, describing his childhood in Belarus, where he was born and raised.According to Almog Burstein, the executive director of the Israel Chess Federation, chess was a highly regarded sport in the USSR.“Boris comes from a country where it is considered an honor to play chess – a national pastime,” he notes.“The government even paid the people to play.”Following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the commander of Vladimir Lenin’s Soviet army, Nikolai Krylenko, set up the groundwork for state-sponsored chess by opening chess schools and training programs and hosting chess tournaments, which were viewed as the way to Soviet international preeminence. Soviet leaders like Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were themselves all avid chess players who appreciated the game for the intellectual skills and strategies involved.In fact, a large number of outstanding chess players from across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were Jewish, among them the Polish chess grandmaster Akiva Rubinstein, whom Gelfand personally regards as one of the greatest of chess players of the 20th century.“In some way,” points out Burstein, “chess has always been considered a Jewish game.”Indeed, Jewish tradition holds that King Solomon played chess with his adviser Benaya Ben-Yehoyada, according to the Midrash. The prolific medieval Jewish scholars Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, Rashi and Maimonides all mention the game in their writings, with Rashi referring to it as “nardeshir ashkuki.” More importantly, the 12th-century poet and Torah scholar Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra is credited with writing the oldest existing “rule book” for the game in a work called Haruzim, where he calls chess “a war of thoughts.” There were even halachic rulings regarding the game, with European rabbis declaring by the 1500s that one could play chess on Shabbat and holidays as long as money and chess clocks were not involved.“It was only natural that such a popular game in the Jewish world would eventually become a national sport in Israel,” Burstein says.But as reality dictates, chess in Israel does not garner the same respect it does in Russia.“Russian society recognizes chess as a source for culture and education,” says Gelfand. “That is why professional chess-playing is so much more developed there. But I hope my recent achievements will change the way Israeli society perceives this sport.”Gelfand made aliya in 1998, after visiting and playing in chess competitions in numerous countries.“I loved Israel the best and wanted to stay here,” he says. He is the only member of his family to have made aliya, as his parents emigrated to the United States.In the meantime, according to Burstein, there are over 3,000 active chess players in Israeli leagues and over 70 chess clubs that the Israel Chess Federation, established in 1935, oversees across the country.“Chess is played in every corner of Israel. Our strongest players are in Beersheba, the capital of the periphery. It is a sport that attracts players from all socioeconomic [levels],” he says, adding that “the sport teaches a way of nonviolent communication, how to make the right decision by looking at all the options, a life skill so valuable to youth. There is no luck or physical strength required, only mathematical, intellectual effort.”Chess, as a “sport, science and art,” according to Gelfand, also requires extensive hours of practice. No one would know this better than his wife, Maya, who tells the Post that chess “is very hard work, a disciplined routine.”“I support my husband in many ways, by maintaining the creative atmosphere he needs to practice well and doing everything to make sure he is motivated and dedicated only to the game. People from the outside don’t always see or understand this,” she explains.“As his manager, I have a lot of responsibility,” she continues. “There is a lot of strength, dedication and sacrifice, but as long as Boris is happy with his work, that is all I can ask for.”The Gelfands have two children, who Maya prefers don’t play the game.“Our six-year-old girl learned to play, but she didn’t fall in love with the game. That’s okay with me,” she says. “Two chess players in the family would be too much.”
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