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Aleksandras Machtas

Aleksandras Machtas was a Lithuanian Jewish chess master and banker who won the Lithuanian chess championship 7 times and later founded and managed the Industrial Bank in Tel Aviv.

1892 to 19737 Lithuanian chess championshipsFirst manager of the Industrial BankRepresenting Lithuania at Chess Olympiads

Born: 6 October 1892, Kaunas
Died: 14 January 1973, Tel Aviv
Occupation: chess player, manager, chief executive officer

Aleksandras Machtas was born in 1892 in Kaunas

Machtas was born in 1892 in Kaunas, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He became a leader of the Jewish community in Kaunas. He was general manager of the Central Jewish Bank there.

A member of the Makabi sports club, he won the Lithuanian chess championship 7 times between 1923 and 1932. He played for Lithuania at the Chess Olympiads of 1930 in Hamburg and 1935 in Warsaw. He was the first player to represent Lithuania on first board at an Olympiad and the first Lithuanian to play a formal game against a reigning world champion, Alexander Alekhine.

In 1936, at the invitation of Aryeh Shenkar, he moved with his wife Esther and their children to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv. He became the first manager of the new Industrial Bank and led it for many years. Musicians Sasha Argov and Avraham Brushi also worked at the bank.

In Israel he became chairman of the chess federation in 1959. He retired from managing the bank in the early part of that following decade. He died in Tel Aviv in 1973.