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Daniel Naroditsky, Jewish chess grandmaster and influential streamer, dies at 29
Daniel Naroditsky, a Jewish chess grandmaster and former child prodigy who became one of the game’s most popular voices through his streaming, commentary and teaching, has died at 29.
Naroditsky’s death was announced Monday by the Charlotte Chess Center, a chess academy in North Carolina, where he worked as a head coach. Information on his survivors and a cause of death was not immediately available.
“It is great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of Daniel Naroditsky. Daniel was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator, and a cherished member of the chess community, admired and respected by fans and players around the world. He was also a loving son and brother, and a loyal friend to many,” the Naroditsky family wrote in a statement shared by the Charlotte Chess Center.
As a teenager, Naroditsky published books on chess strategy, including “Mastering Positional Chess” in 2010 and “Mastering Complex Endgames” in 2012.
Naroditsky earned his chess grandmaster title, the highest honor given to competitors by the International Chess Federation, in 2013 when he was 17 and had yet to graduate high school.
He was an active content creator on Twitch and Youtube, where he had nearly 500,000 subscribers.
Known as Danya, Naroditsky was born on Nov. 9, 1995, in San Mateo, California to Vladimir Naroditsky and Lena Schuman, Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Ukraine and Azerbaijan, respectively. Naroditsky attended Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, California and was bar mitzvahed at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo in 2009.
In November 2007, Naroditsky was named the under-12 World Youth Chess Champion, telling J. The Jewish News of Northern California at the time that he “couldn’t play chess without loving it.”
“I played a rabbi,” a 10-year-old Naroditsky said after he earned the title. “He lost right away and instead of losing normally he threw all the pieces in the air and stormed out. I almost laughed.”
He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University in 2019 after taking a year off to play in chess tournaments.
Naroditsky was introduced to the game by his brother, Alan, at just 6 years old and quickly developed an aptitude for the game.
“I think a lot of people want to imagine that it was love at first sight and that my brother couldn’t pull me away from the chessboard,” Naroditsky told the New York Times in 2022, when he was introduced as its chess columnist. “It was more of a gradual process, where chess slowly entered the battery of stuff we did to pass the time. A lot of my best memories are just doing stuff with my brother.”
In his last video uploaded to YouTube, titled “You Thought I Was Gone!? Speedrun Returns!,” Naroditsky told his fans that after a brief pause he was “back and better than ever.”
“I still can’t believe it and don’t want to believe it,” tweeted Dutch grandmaster Benjamin Bok about news of Naroditsky’s death. “It was always a privilege to play, train, and commentate with Danya, but above all, to call him my friend.”
At the time of his death, Naroditsky was ranked in the top 160 players in the world and the top 20 players in the United States, according to the International Chess Federation. He especially excelled at a fast-paced version of the game called blitz chess, for which he maintained a top 25 ranking throughout his adult career.
Naroditsky’s father, Vladimir, died in 2019.
“We ask for privacy for Daniel’s family during this extremely difficult time,” the statement from his family continued. “Let us remember Daniel for his passion and love for the game of chess, and for the joy and inspiration he brought to us every day.”
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The post Daniel Naroditsky, Jewish chess grandmaster and influential streamer, dies at 29 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.