SA’s Jacob Berman beat Sharansky at the Maccabiah

ILAN HERRMANN

Maccabi chess medal contender, Berman (18), is playing on behalf of South Africa – although he also holds American citizenship – and is deeply patriotic to both countries.

Sharansky spent nine years in prison in Russia as a refusenik and says he retained his sanity during this time by playing chess in his head, as he had no chess board on which to play.

As part of the Maccabiah, Sharansky was invited to play a simultaneous match against 20 players last Wednesday. 

“Tonight I had the opportunity to play chess against 20 people simultaneously as part of the Maccabiah. I played against some extremely formidable opponents, including several youngsters who no doubt have bright futures ahead of them.”

One of those “formidable opponents” was Berman. While all the other players fell to Sharansky’s prowess at the board, Berman kept him going. Eventually a large audience had gathered watching as the game went to three and a half hours on the clock. It finally ended in a draw.

Berman commented afterwards: “It was an absolute privilege to have played Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky to a three and a half hour draw in a chess match tonight. While in solitary confinement in a Gulag-type prison, Natan played thousands of games of chess in his head to stay sane. A true inspiration!”

Berman started the tournament with a superb result, beating the number one seed at the Maccabiah Open, Russia’s Igor Golberg[PKM1] , in a three-hour duel.

With only five minutes on the clock while Golberg had over an hour left, Berman pulled a “Houdini” move that forced Golberg to resign. At the time of going to press on Wednesday, Berman had four wins and two losses and was about to play number two seed in the tournament, Israeli Daniel Moskovich.

Berman had little time to prepare for the Maccabiah because of his intense academic schedule. He is at Princeton University and serves on a whole range of committees. He is the only white person on the board of the “African Committee” at Princeton which caters to the needs of the African students who are there.

He is also the vice president of the Republican committee. At 18 years old, this is huge achievement for a freshman.

Berman has represented South Africa at chess, travelling to Dubai, China, India, Hungary and other countries with the SA National youth squad.

Berman’s father David, originally from Durban, founded “Chess For Change”, which has been established as part of the curriculum in many South African schools. It has been introduced as a tool to sharpen the mind and to enable assertive, creative, strategic thinking to be enhanced.

It impacts some 300 000 students across South Africa’s disadvantaged schools. Berman’s recently appointment of Howard Goldberg, former SA leading chess player, at the helm of the “Chess For Change”, will no doubt see this number exponentially grow.

Said Sharansky after playing the match: “As I told the group tonight, playing chess in my head enabled me to maintain my sanity when I was in prison, and I still consider chess to be the most Jewish game of them all.

“I wish all 10 000 athletes participating in the Maccabiah success and I look forward to welcoming them back to Jerusalem!”