Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Sarah Merians/Courtesy of Commentary Inc.
Norman Podhoretz
(JNS) — Norman Podhoretz, one of the most influential American Jewish intellectuals of the postwar era and the longtime editor of Commentary magazine, died in New York City on Dec. 16, weeks before his 96th birthday. He passed away peacefully, according to his family.
A liberal as a young man, he later emerged as one of the most prominent conservative thinkers in the United States, playing a central role in shaping American political and cultural debate for decades.
As editor-in-chief of Commentary for 35 years, he helped redefine the magazine’s intellectual direction, publishing extensively on literature, politics and Jewish identity. Over the course of his career, he wrote 12 books, decades of newspaper columns and published 145 essays in Commentary between 1953 and 2020.
In his 1999 memoir, “Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt and Norman Mailer,” he wrote about his intellectual journey from left-wing radicalism to conservatism and the breakdown of his friendships with prominent New York intellectuals.
Podhoretz was the father of Ruthe Blum, Jewish News Syndicate senior contributing editor, and Commentary editor John Podhoretz, who wrote in a eulogy that his father remained “a man of letters” to the very end. At the time of his death, his son noted, a new translation of “The Odyssey” sat on his father’s desk alongside Alexander Pope’s classic version.
In recognition of his support for Israel and his contributions to Jewish thought, Podhoretz received the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies in 2007.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to immigrant parents, Podhoretz rose from poverty to become a towering figure in American intellectual life — known for his literary criticism, ideological independence and deep engagement with Jewish history, faith and identity.
His wife, Midge Decter, died on May 9, 2022, at the age of 94. He is survived by four children, 13 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
