Is Bobby Fischer an anti-Semite?

[ButterflyBlood]

I heard that he grew up in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, and his mother was likely Jewish as well. However I've now seen some quotes from him, where refers to people such as Ed Koch and both Bushes as "Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews."

Seems strange, but what's the deal with him?

[LittleApple81]

1. He went off the deep end years ago. To persecute a madman seems

equally crazy.

[Karenina]

13. I'm with you on this.

Riding on the train one day an elderly, obviously sick woman started SCREECHING about "Negers" as a kid boarded. In my book that kind of manifestation doesn't even rise to the level of "racism." It's more like Tourette's. The poor tortured soul was CLEARLY several tacos short of a combination plate. A few frowned at first, but ended up giggling with the kid and the rest of us. She disembarked and waddled, muttering, down the street.

[calico1]

2. He is an odd guy. Always been that way.

[Dookus]

3. Yes...

he's an anti-semite. A virulent one.

He blames everything bad in the world on "filthy Jews". He's a nutcase.

[ButterflyBlood]

4. but apparentely he's partly Jewish himself

strange

[unblock]

12. supposedly hitler was 1/4 jewish

don't know if that one's true, but purity is not a requirement for bigotry

[drumwolf]

5. The NYT has an article on him today

He was just arrested in Tokyo for trying to leave Japan without a passport, and the NY Times did an article on him in today's issue describing not only the arrest but the whole story of his life. And apparently, he does indeed have some serious personal demons that have basically derailed his life.

If you have a subscription to their site, you can access this article here.

Born in Chicago but reared in Brooklyn, he first drew attention as an adolescent prodigy, able to hold his own with the strongest American players at the Marshall and Manhattan Chess Clubs in Manhattan. A national champion at 14 and a grandmaster at 15, he became an international celebrity in 1972 when, at the height of the cold war, he unseated the Russian world champion, Boris Spassky, in a match in Reykjavik, Iceland. That, however, was to be the last of Mr. Fischer's triumphs. A petulant, demanding man with a cruel unpredictable streak, by the time he became world champion he was already known for his outlandishly self-aggrandizing behavior. It was part of what made him a legend.

In "Searching for Bobby Fischer," the 1988 book about the chess world that is partly about Mr. Fischer's status as an icon, the author, Fred Waitzkin, summed up Mr. Fischer's behavior in Reykjavik this way: "He drove the organizers of the tournament to despair. He argued about the choice of chess table, about his hotel room, about the noise in the auditorium, about the proximity of the audience to the players and about the lighting. He demanded that the organizers lend him a Mercedes with an automatic transmission and arrange for the private use of a swimming pool. He came late to each game and kept threatening to pull out of the match if his demands weren't met."

(snip)

A virulent anti-Semite in spite of his own Jewish ancestry (his mother was a Jew), he has claimed that his belongings were stolen by a Jewish conspiracy from a warehouse in Southern California, where he lived during the 1980's. The federal indictment against him after the match in Yugoslavia seemed to ignite an equally virulent anti-American fire in him. Over the past five years, his occasional rants to radio stations in Iceland and Hungary, as well as the Philippines, have been full of hate against Jews and the United States.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he told a radio talk-show host in Baguio, the Philippines, that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were "wonderful news," adding he was wishing for a scenario "where the country will be taken over by the military, they'll close down all the synagogues, arrest all the Jews and secure hundreds of thousands of Jewish ringleaders."

ON EDIT: I might add, since his mother is Jewish, that means that technically Bobby himself qualifies as a Jew.

[VolcanoJen]

6. Most certainly.

I was able to find this article from The Atlantic, which I recall reading when it first came out. By his own admission, he's about as irrationally anti-Semitic as one can get.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/12/chun.htm

A choice passage (emphasis mine):

This radio broadcast was Fischer's seventeenth in the Philippines. The bizarre karaoke interlude was a departure of sorts, but otherwise the broadcast was no different from the previous sixteen. Fischer's talking points never vary.

- Bobby Fischer is being persecuted by world Jewry.

<snip>

- The Jews are a "filthy, lying bastard people" bent on world domination through such insidious schemes as the Holocaust ("a money-making invention"), the mass murder of Christian children ("their blood is used for black-magic ceremonies"), and junk food (William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin' Donuts, is singled out as a culprit).

- The No. 1 transgression, however, the thing that has devastated Fischer, embittered him, and made him screech at night, alone in his apartment, is the "Bekins heist."

Millions of dollars' worth of personal memorabilia, painstakingly collected and stockpiled by Bobby Fischer in a ten-by-ten-foot Bekins storage room in Pasadena, California, has been stolen from him in a secret plot involving the Rothschilds (Jews), Bill Clinton (a secret Jew), and unnamed Bekins executives (CIA rats who work for the Jews).

[Yupster]

14. LOL

Good to get Bill Clinton in there. For some reason, a nutty guy ranting away just doesn't seem complete unless Bill Clinton is blamed for something.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. In short, he's seriously mentally disturbed, and

his over-the-top anti-Semitism is just one manifestation of that.

[Comicstripper]

8. Bobby

Good question. He is not only an anti-Semite, but a very passionate one. I've heard a number of quotes backing this up. He despises his ehritage (which he acknowledges), and claims that Jews are child-mutilating bastards (referring to circumcision). On a live September 11th radio interview, he (quote) "Applaud(s)" the attacks, later skrieching, (again, quote): "Y'know... FUCK AMERICA, FUCK THE JEWS..."
Just sickening.
Hell of a chess player, though.

[Bluebear]

9. In a word..................

[olddem43]

10. He sounds like an idiot savant. n/t

[DieboldMustDie]

11. He's also had the fillings removed from his teeth...

to keep others from controlling his thoughts. :tinfoilhat:

[Jack Rabbit]

15. Yes, Fischer is an anti-Semite

He's a lunatic. He has serious issues with his mother, who is Jewish, and projects that onto all Jews. Most anti-Semites are contempuous, but this is one for whom I feel pity.