belief in the efficiency of the system. Also in the game of chess, the Jewish players try to bring into effect doctrines of unity and truth, in contrast especially to the Americans, who take existing circumstances and necessities of the moment into account. Thus, neither the Dutch nor the English have, in spite of the abundance of their literature on the subject, created systems.
It has remained to the Jews, and to some extent also to the Germans, to set up systems. Lasker explains this most distinct peculiarity of the Jews in chess with the spirit of the Torah, whose fundament and goal is the one God, the one Law, the one Truth, the one Mankind.
Lasker supports these psychological assertions with examples taken from the development of the game of the great Jewish players Horwitz, Alexander Loewenthal, Steinitz—Lasker’s predecessor as world champion, whom Lasker calls the greatest systematizer ever known—Tarrasch, Niemzowitch, Bernstein, Rubinstein, Reti and others.
Resuming, Lasker calls the love for unity the fundamental motive of the Jewish player, and the love of variety that of the non-Jew and he concludes with the following statement:
“The Jewish players evince, also in the chess game, piety and belief. Unconsciously, also in the game, he lives the faith in truth and justice, though often this faith is not actually realized.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
