Leon Wieseltier (; born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the

literary editor A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews.

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

''. He was a contributing editor and critic at ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' until October 27, 2017, when the magazine fired him following multiple allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. He is currently the editor of ''Liberties.''

Life and career

Wieseltier was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, the son of Stella (Backenroth) and Mark Wieseltier, who were

Holocaust survivors Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

from Poland. He attended the

Yeshiva of Flatbush The Yeshivah of Flatbush is a Modern Orthodox private Jewish day school located in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York. It educates students from age 2 to age 18 and includes an early childhood center, an elementary school and a secondary ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He was a member of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

(1979–82). During his tenure as literary editor of ''

'', Wieseltier played a central role in the increased stature of its "back of the book" or literary, cultural and arts pages, which he edited. The magazine's owner,

Marty Peretz Martin H. Peretz (; born December 6, 1938) is an American former magazine publisher and educator. Formerly an assistant professor at Harvard University, he purchased ''The New Republic'' in 1974 and assumed editorial control shortly afterwards. H ...

discovered Wieseltier, then working at Harvard's Society of Fellows, and installed him in charge of the section. Wieseltier reinvented the section along the lines of ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', allowing his critics, many of them academics, to write longer, critical essays instead of simple book reviews. Media critic

Eric Alterman Eric Alterman (born January 14, 1960) is an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the author of eleven books. From 1 ...

has called the selection of Wieseltier "probably ..Peretz's single most significant positive achievement" in running the magazine. During other changes of editors, Wieseltier remained as cultural editor. Under him the section was "simultaneously erudite and zestful." Wieseltier has published several books of fiction and nonfiction. ''Kaddish'', a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

finalist in 2000, and a

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Lionel Trilling entitled '' The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent'' and wrote the foreword to Ann Weiss's ''The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau'', a collection of personal photographs that serves as a paean to pre-

Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

innocence. Wieseltier's translations of the works of Israeli poet

Yehuda Amichai Yehuda Amichai ( he, יהודה עמיחי; born Ludwig Pfeuffer 3 May 1924 – 22 September 2000) was an Israeli poet and author, one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew in modern times. Amichai was awarded the 1957 Shlonsky Prize, the ...

have appeared in ''The New Republic'' and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. Wieseltier served on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was a prominent advocate of the

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...

. "I am in no sense a

neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and count ...

, as many of my neoconservative adversaries will attest," Wieseltier wrote in a May 2007 letter to Judge

Reggie Walton Reggie Barnett Walton (born February 8, 1949) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He is a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Early life ...

, seeking leniency for his friend

Scooter Libby Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby (born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney known for his high-profile indictment. From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President ...

. In 2013, he was the recipient of the

Dan David Prize The Dan David Prize is a major international award that recognizes and supports outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. It awards nine prizes of $300,000 each year to outstanding ...

for being "a foremost writer and thinker who confronts and engages with the central issues of our times, setting the standard for serious cultural discussion in the United States". In January 2016, it was reported that Wieseltier would be joining

Laurene Powell Jobs Laurene Powell Jobs ( Powell; born November 6, 1963)United States birth records is an American billionaire businesswoman and executive. She is the founder and chair of Emerson Collective and XQ Institute. Powell Jobs resides in Palo Alto, Calif ...

to form a new publication devoted to exploring the effects of technology on people's lives. Powell Jobs withdrew funding for the journal on October 24, 2017 after Wieseltier admitted to sexual harassment and inappropriate advances with several former female employees. Jobs said in a formal statement: “Upon receiving information related to past inappropriate workplace conduct, Emerson Collective ended its business relationship with Leon Wieseltier, including a journal planned for publication under his editorial direction. The production and distribution of the journal has been ended.” He was also fired by the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...

and is no longer an Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy.

Sexual harassment acknowledgment

In the aftermath of Harvey Weinstein allegations and the #MeToo movement, a list of "

Shitty Media Men Shitty Media Men was a crowdsourced Google spreadsheet created in October 2017 that collected allegations and rumors of sexual misconduct by about 70 men in the media industry, particularly in New York City. Moira Donegan, a former assistant edito ...

" including Wieseltier, was widely shared and featured men in the media industry who were accused of sexual misconduct. After it was revealed on October 24, 2017 that several former women employees of ''The New Republic'' had accused Wieseltier of sexual harassment and inappropriate advances, admitted to "offenses against some of my colleagues in the past." In a statement he made after the allegations became public, Wiseltier said: “I am ashamed to know that I made nyone.. feel demeaned and disrespected. I assure them that I will not waste this reckoning.” According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'': "Several women... said they were humiliated when Mr. Wieseltier sloppily kissed them on the mouth, sometimes in front of other staff members. Others said he discussed his sex life, once describing the breasts of a former girlfriend in detail. Mr. Wieseltier made passes at female staffers, they said, and pressed them for details about their own sexual encounters. Mr. Wieseltier often commented on what women wore to the office, the former staff members said, telling them that their dresses were not tight enough. One woman said he left a note on her desk thanking her for the miniskirt she wore to the office that day. She said she never wore a skirt to the office again". Another woman who was harassed by Wieseltier, Sarah Wildman, a former assistant editor of the magazine, has written that she was fired for complaining: "In disclosing this incident to my superiors, the outcome was, in many ways, far worse than the act itself. It’s not exactly that I was disbelieved; it’s that in the end, I was dismissed," she wrote in ''Vox''. Wildman further wrote that the sexual harassment went hand in hand with gender discrimination at the magazine during Peretz's and Wieseltier's tenure: "The women knew we had a far shallower chance of rising up the masthead than our male counterparts; all of us hoped we’d be the exception. To do so, we entered into a game in which the rules were rigged against us, sometimes pushing us well past our point of comfort in order to remain in play."

Criticism

Wieseltier was a frequent target of the satirical monthly '' Spy'' magazine. It often derided his analyses of pop culture as comically pretentious and mocked him as "Leon Vee-ZEL-tee-AY" who "jealously guards his highbrow credentials while wearing a lowbrow heart on his sleeve". In reference to being called a "Jew-baiter" by Wieseltier, Andrew Sullivan has said, "Wieseltier is a connoisseur and cultivator of personal hatred"—referring to a dislike based on "tedious" causes that Wieseltier allegedly has held regarding him for a long time. Wiesltier was the subject of a 2017 essay, "The Tzaddick of the Intellectuals" written by

Joseph Epstein Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans. Communi ...

that appeared in ''

The Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "re ...

'' (November 3, 2017) and was included in "Gallimaufry" a collection of Epstein's essays published in 2020. See also

Tzadik Tzadik ( he, צַדִּיק , "righteous ne, also ''zadik'', ''ṣaddîq'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadiqim'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The ...

Personal life

Wieseltier and Mahnaz Ispahani married in 1985, and divorced in 1994. Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...

officiated at their wedding in 1985. After a long-term relationship with choreographer

Twyla Tharp Twyla Tharp (; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. Fr ...

, he married his second wife, Jennifer Bradley, who worked on urban-development issues at the

. ''The Washington Post'' reported that Supreme Court Justice

would also officiate at their October 2000 wedding. As of 2020, the couple was in the midst of a divorce. Wieseltier is a fluent

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

speaker, and when interviewed in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, he said "I feel perfectly at home here."

In popular culture

Wieseltier appeared in one episode of the fifth season of ''

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster, portraying his difficulties as he tries to balance ...

'', playing Stewart Silverman, a character whom Wieseltier described as "a derangingly materialistic co-religionist who dreams frantically of 'Wedding of the Week' and waits a whole year for some stupid car in which he can idle for endless hours in traffic east of Quogue every weekend of every summer, the vulgar

Zegna Zegna () is an Italian luxury fashion house. It was founded in 1910 by Ermenegildo Zegna in Trivero, Biella of the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. As of 2021, the Group is a public company. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Hist ...

-swaddled brother of a Goldman Sachs mandarin whose son's ''

siman tov Siman tov ( he, סימן טוב, ) is a Hebrew-language congratulatory expression, and also serves as a Jewish given name or surname. Notable people with the name under various transliterations include: * Zablon Simintov, second-last Jew in Afgha ...

mazel tov "Mazel tov" or "mazal tov" (Hebrew/Yiddish: , Hebrew: ''mazál tov''; Yiddish: ''mázl tov''; lit. "good fortune") is a Jewish phrase used to express congratulations for a happy and significant occasion or event. Etymology and pronunciation ...

'' is provided by a pulchritudinous and racially diverse bunch of shellfish-eating chicks in tight off-the-shoulder gowns".

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wieseltier, Leon 1952 births Jewish American writers Living people American literary critics American male journalists American magazine editors Columbia College (New York) alumni Harvard University alumni Harvard Fellows The New Republic people 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Writers from Brooklyn Journalists from New York City Sexual harassment in the United States 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American Jews