ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on chess as a widespread leisure activity and successful competitive sport in Israel and in the pre-state Yishuv. The popularity of this game in this region emerged not long after the beginning of the Zionist immigration to Palestine. Yet this chapter contends that the popularity of chess is somewhat inconsistent with the collectivist ethos of the Zionist and, later, Israeli sabra that predominantly glorified farming and physical vigor. This chapter suggests that this success of chess is interrelated with the myth of the Jewish genius that brings together the biblical myth of a chosen nation, and Jewish success in science and business. Yet this chapter stresses that the Zionist establishment perceived chess as evidence of the Jews’ returning to live a “normal” life, a “nation like all other nations,” for the first time in 2,000 years.
