Israeli Attains New Chess High
And Sharansky checkmates boxer Salita
December 15, 2009
On Monday, Belarusian-born Boris Gelfand became one of the highest-ranked Israeli chess players ever: he is now the Chess World Cup holder, or third in the world. Should he become the world’s best chess player, he will join a whole bunch of other Jews who have previously been the world’s best chess player.
Meanwhile, also on Monday, Orthodox Jewish boxer Dmitry “Star of David” Salita was soundly trounced … in chess. His victorious opponent? None other than Natan Sharansky, the one-time Soviet dissident and Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs. Sharansky, who once beat chess world champion Gary Kasparov (albeit during a simultaneous exhibition game on, according to a sullen Kasparov, an off-day), took 20 moves to get to checkmate, or presumably longer than the 76 seconds Amir Khan needed to KO Salita in the ring earlier this month.
Israeli Wins Chess World Cup [Vos Iz Neias?]
Sharansky Knocks out Boxing Champ Salita—on the Chessboard [Arutz Sheva]
Earlier: Boxer Credits God For … Defeat?
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
