Chess master Josh Bowman has a thousand yeshivah kids from around the country in his Chess Chevra, where they’re learning to think clearly while playing the world’s oldest game

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

They control kings and queens and manipulate entire armies, but instead of suiting up in battle gear, these pint-sized female warriors wear gray pleated skirts and light blue uniform polos as they hone their contemplative skills and zoom in for the win during the chess class at Brooklyn’s Bnos Leah Prospect Park Yeshiva.

There’s a definite buzz in the air as I walk into the school’s chess classroom with Josh Bowman, whose Chess Chevra program is currently teaching the age-old  board game in 17 schools nationwide. The program also offers online global tournaments for those who dream of becoming accredited masters of the game.

Even as the girls sit listening attentively to Chess Chevra instructor Marfa Esaulova, known to her Prospect Park Yeshiva students as Morah Marfa, it’s clear that students are itching to start battling on the green and tan vinyl chess mats laid out in front of them. Bowman’s eyes survey the room as Esaulova demonstrates an opening move known as the Queen’s Gambit — sacrificing the queen’s pawn to gain better control of the center of the board — nodding appreciatively as one girl offers a solution to the problem posed to the class.

As the games begin and students face off against each other, Bowman’s eyes light up as he moves from board to board, quizzing the girls about the three ways to get out of a check situation, suggesting potential moves and exclaiming animatedly as one player loses her queen in an ill-fated maneuver. Without a doubt, Bowman is a long way from his first encounter with chess, when he was nearly the same age as these fourth-graders, his journey to launching Chess Chevra spanning many years and thousands of miles.

Josh Bowman, who had earned the rank of national master during his off time in yeshivah, ultimately came full circle, combining his love of chess with his two other passions — education and the Jewish community. Oddly enough, it was the pandemic that paved the way for Bowman to launch his career, the realities of the lockdown prompting him to start teaching chess on Zoom.

“It was at the very beginning of Covid, when you couldn’t go out at all, and I reached out to someone in Philadelphia whose kids had taken chess with me previously and asked him if he wanted me to give them lessons on Zoom,” recalls Bowman. “He asked if we could turn it into a group lesson, since his kids hadn’t seen their friends in three weeks.”

That first 30-minute-long class included six children from the same neighborhood, and it went so well that Bowman looked for a way to keep it going. He realized that parents were actively seeking ways to keep their kids occupied, so he put the word out on various platforms and asked friends to spread the news as well.

“Everyone has a cousin or a friend somewhere, and my network started expanding,” says Bowman. “We went from ten to 60 kids very quickly. There were no camps that summer, and people needed something to do.”

As the pandemic continued, Bowman’s phone kept ringing with requests for lessons. While originally Chess Chevra’s online lessons had been formed as clusters of friends, neighbors, or family members, the quickly-growing student body had to be categorized based on age, level, experience and gender. With so many students slogging through the 2020-21 academic year in Zoom school, Bowman’s online chess classes were much better suited to a virtual platform, and a welcome change of pace for lockdown-weary kids yearning for positive outlets.

As the world began reverting back to a less restrictive lifestyle, Bowman realized that Chess Chevra also needed to pivot. He used his newfound marketing network to search for teachers to accommodate the many requests for chess classes that were coming in. By the time the new school year rolled around, Chess Chevra was offering in-person classes in eight different schools in New York City, Monsey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Los Angeles. Schools were starting to realize that the game taught students to focus, plan ahead, and consider the consequences of their actions.

“The biggest challenge in this generation, for children and adults, is that there are so many bells and whistles always buzzing, which creates a desire to act impulsively,” explains Bowman. “We try to get them to slow down and to make careful, thought-out decisions and avoid the impulsivity that always leads to careless mistakes.”

A Kew Gardens Hills resident, Bowman estimates that Chess Chevra has taught nearly 1,000 students, 95 percent of whom were children. He does his best to visit each school at least once, despite the distance involved, going to classes in Skokie, Silver Spring, and Los Angeles. For the current school year, Bowman has 20 teachers giving classes in 17 schools throughout the country, in addition to private virtual lessons, with students ranging from pre-1A through high school.