Arab teams and individual players have been known to forfeit their matches against Israelis in protest of the Jewish state while some countries have even banned Israeli players from participating tournaments hosted in their countries. 

But in an astounding bit of news, and thanks to coronavirus which forced most events to go online, Israeli chess players recently competed in a tournament against a team made up of Arab players including representatives of Syria, Algeria and Tunisia — countries that have no diplomatic ties with Israel.

This probably would not have happened had the tournament occurred on the soil of one of these countries, however, some 65 Israeli and Arab players competed against each other in what has been called a “historic occasion,” by an Israeli activist Lior Aizenberg, a chess player who has been battling these and boycotts in the chess world. 

Remember the falafel shop owner we featured here who became the symbol of economic duress during shutdowns stemming from the coronavirus pandemic in Israel? Yuval Carmi was hospitalized this week due to a heart attack brought on by the stress of financial ruin.

But that is not all. Carmi, who was rushed into emergency treatment after experiencing chest pains, said people have been criticizing him since his April interview.

“I came to the ER. Someone came up to me, his wife recognized me and said ‘Hello.’ Her husband came up and asked her, ‘Do you know him?’ She said, ‘Yes, it’s the crybaby from the television,’” Carmi said. “It hurt me. My heart exploded.”

He said he had been subject to accusations on social media that he put on a show for the cameras to drum up business.

“My wife and children, every evening would come home and cry, and see everything that was written about us on Facebook, that we’re rich and that ‘he’s a liar and a cheater,’” Carmi said.