Contributing more evidence that chess players are crazy racists, former world champion Boris Spassky has signed a petition to ban Jewish organizations.

Many leading Soviet-era players were Jewish, including Garry Kasparov, officially the highest-ranked in the world but now retired. The intense competition created a "them and us" division between Jewish and non-Jewish players, who include Spassky. Although this is the first time that Spassky has given vent to anti-Semitic feelings in public, Fischer - whose parents were, in fact, Jewish - has frequently exposed himself as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite.

I am currently reading Jaan Ehlvest's book. In it he says "there was always this thinking that the best chess players in the world were the Soviet Jews, then - Soviet chess players, and after that - other Jews." He goes on to say that "Moscow officials disliked the Jewish chess players even more than other nationalities, such as Estonians."