Izak Aloni

Izak Aloni was born in 1905 in Buchach

Aloni was born Izak Schächter in Buchach, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. He learned chess as a child. In 1938 he married Miriam in Lviv.

He won the Lviv championship in 1936 and 1939 and played in 2 Polish championships. After World War II began he was sent to Kazakhstan. In 1941 he joined the Polish army of General Władysław Anders and served with it in Iran, Iraq and Palestine.

He reached the Land of Israel in 1944, settled in Haifa and took the name Aloni. His wife survived the war in hiding near Lviv, and they were reunited in Israel in 1948. In 1948 he joined the army and took part in defending the Hatikva neighborhood.

He won the national championship in 1945, 1961 and 1965 and played for Israel at Chess Olympiads from 1952 to 1962. At the 1954 Olympiad he defeated the Soviet grandmaster Kotov. From 1949 he worked as a collections clerk for the Tel Aviv municipality.

He kept playing in international tournaments in Israel into the late 1960s. He died in 1985 and was buried in the Southern Cemetery.