Israel Abramowitsch Schiffmann ( * September 27, 1903 in Odessa; † April 29, 1930 in Chișinău, then Romania) was a Romanian chess composer.

Chess composition
Schiffmann learned to play chess at the age of seven. After a stay in a sanatorium in 1924, he became interested in chess composition.

Although he only composed for five years, he won more than 60 prizes during this period,

including almost two dozen first prizes, and created a two-move theme named after him. In the World Championship, which was held as a summary of all tournament successes, he took second place in the two-move division in 1928 and won victory in 1929. He composed around 200-300 tasks of all types, but mainly two-move ones. He was two-move editor of the Romanian chess magazine Revista Română de Şah from 1928 until his death. His command of six languages (German, English, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian) stood him in good stead. He published articles in various magazines and was considered an authority.

Schiffmann parades
In 1927, Schiffmann composed a two-move move, the theme of which was later named after him: the key move creates a mating threat through the use of a trigger battery. In the thematic variations (parries), Black prevents the obvious checkmate, but ties himself up in such a way that checkmate can no longer be prevented. This is also referred to as self-binding parades. The topic was presented in a task by the Dane Hans Valdemar Arntz as early as 1888.

Life
Schiffmann was the son of an entrepreneur in the metallurgical industry. After his basic training, Schiffmann studied at the Technical University in Charlottenburg. Health problems that arose in 1924 forced him to stay in a pulmonary sanatorium in southern Germany. A few months before his death, he came down with a severe case of the flu and was no longer able to leave his bed. According to an obituary in Revista Română de Şah, Schiffmann “believed firmly in human dignity, honor and justice.”

Sources
Gabriel Baumgartner (actually Odette Vollenweider): Fascinating Chess Problem: Compositions by I. A. Schiffmann, self-published, Heidelberg, November 1963.
Web links
Compositions by Israel Schiffmann on the Schwalbe PDB server
Individual evidence
  David Hooper and Ken Whyld: Oxford Companion to Chess. Oxford University Press 1984. ISBN 0-19-281986-0. p. 296
  Litmanowicz/Giżycki: Szachy od A do Z, Warsaw 1986 (Polish), Volume 2, p. 1093, ISBN 83-217-2745-X

Others: on Website arves.org 2 endgame studies composed by Israel Schiffmann are selected and can be replayed.

Source: de.wikipedia.org

"Israel Abraham Schiffmann was one of the greatest two move composers of all time. Amazingly he only composed problems from 1924 to 1930."  Kabe Moen