Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps is a book on chess philately for both the specialist and the average reader.

Have you ever wondered who has the greater chess culture, the United States or Guinea-Bissau? If the measuring stick is the number of chess stamps printed, the United States is a clear loser because it has not produced even one! Jewish Masters on Stamps by Felix Berkovich offers this interesting tidbit and much more. Mr. Berkovich points out that most chess stamps have been put out by either the former Soviet Union or its old allies. Amazingly enough, countries without any chess tradition at all, including Chad, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, and the Congo, are prolific producers of chess-related stamps. I found the idea that locals use stamps with the pictures of world champions to get their mail from Brazzaville to N'Djamena quite appealing, though the reality is that these stamps are published primarily for philatelists.

The United States may not have produced any chess stamps, but that does not mean that there are no living Americans featured. As you might guess, Bobby Fischer has been honored many times, but who is number two? You might think the answer is Kamsky, or even Seirawan, but you would be wrong! Try New Jersey's Irina Levitina, a world class bridge and chess player. Levitina has roughly half a dozen stamps devoted to her by virtue of playing a World Championship match with Chiburdandize and having won several women's tournaments in the former East Germany and Yugoslavia.

Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps offers short biographies of Steinitz, Lasker, Botvinnik, Tal, Kasparov, Lowenthal, Janowski, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Reti, Flohr, Najdorf, Reshevsky, Bronstein, Geller, Kushner, Levitina, and the three Polgars. Mr. Berdovich, a chemical engineer from East Walpole, Massachusetts, is a philatelist and not a chess player, but he has done a fine job of highlighting players' significant achievements. In Levitina's case, it was her winning three Soviet Women's Championships in a row, from 1978 to 1980, that he rightly emphasizes. Berkovich leaves out Spassky, Smyslov, Fischer, and Kortchnoi, all of whom have Jewish mothers, but includes Kasparov, who had a Jewish father. The key criteria for inclusion for Berkovich is whether the player acknowledges their Jewish ethnicity.

Like all McFarland books Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps is a very well produced, beautiful hardback. The 106 stamps featured are suitable for framing. This is a book designed to last. It is also a book on a very specialized subject and McFarland is to be praised once again for not catering to the opening book niche, which accounts for over 75 percent of the market. Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps will not improve your chess, but it will raise your chess culture.

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