Natan Sharansky and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against adults. At the age of 15, he won the championship in his native Donetsk. When incarcerated in solitary confinement, he claims to have maintained his sanity by playing chess against himself in his mind. Sharansky beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition in Israel in 1996. He took his current Hebrew name in 1986, when he was freed from Soviet incarceration as part of a prisoner exchange and received an Israeli passport with his new name. Natan
Eli Sadan During his studies, he was asked by Rabbi Kook to assist in establishing Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights and in establishing a core of Torah scholars in Eilat. Together with Rabbi Tzvi Tau, he was delegated by Rabbi Zvi Yehuda with regarding to prisoners of Zion, among them Natan Sharansky. They even held a secret telephone conversation before Sharansky entered the Russian prison. Afterwards, Sadan held several meetings with US officials in order to secure Sharansky's release. In 1988, Sadan established the first pre-military preparatory program (mechina), together with Rabbi Yigal Levinstein. The mechina is named "Bnei David" and