''Commentary'' is a monthly American magazine on religion,
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, and politics, as well as social and cultural issues. Founded by the
American Jewish Committee in 1945 under
Elliot E. Cohen, editor from 1945 to 1959, ''Commentary'' magazine developed into the leading postwar journal of Jewish affairs. The periodical strove to construct a new American Jewish identity while processing the events of the Holocaust, the formation of the State of Israel, and the Cold War.
Norman Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz (; born January 16, 1930) is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as " paleo- neoconservative". edited the magazine in its heyday from 1960 to 1995. Besides its coverage of cultural issues, ''Commentary'' provided a voice for the
anti-Stalinist left
The anti-Stalinist left is an umbrella term for various kinds of left-wing political movements that opposed Joseph Stalin, Stalinism and the actual system of governance Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953. T ...
. As Podhoretz shifted from his original ideological beliefs as a
liberal Democrat to
neoconservatism
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 ...
in the 1970s and 1980s, he moved the magazine with him to the right and toward the
Republican Party.
History
Founding and early years
''Commentary'' was the successor to the ''Contemporary Jewish Record'', which was published by the
American Jewish Committee (AJC) and ran from 1938 to 1945. When the ''Record''s editor died in 1944, the AJC consulted with New York intellectuals including
Daniel Bell
Daniel Bell (May 10, 1919 – January 25, 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading A ...
and
Lionel Trilling
Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...
: they recommended that the AJC hire
Elliot Cohen, who had been the editor of a Jewish cultural magazine and was then a fundraiser, to start a new journal. Cohen designed ''Commentary'' to reconnect assimilated Jews and Jewish intellectuals with the broader, more traditional and very liberal Jewish community. At the same time the magazine would bring the ideas of the young Jewish
New York intellectuals
The New York Intellectuals were a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century. They advocated left-wing politics but were also firmly anti-Stalinist. The group is known for having sought to integr ...
to a wider audience. It demonstrated that Jewish intellectuals, and by extension all American Jews, had turned away from their past political radicalism to embrace mainstream U.S. culture and values. Cohen stated his grand design in the first issue:
[Ehrman, John (June 1, 1999]
"Commentary, the Public Interest, and the Problem of Jewish Conservatism"
''American Jewish History''
As Podhoretz put it, ''Commentary'' was to lead the Jewish intellectuals "out of the desert of alienation ... and into the promised land of democratic, pluralistic, and prosperous America".
[ Cohen brought on board strong editors who themselves wrote important essays, including ]Irving Kristol
Irving Kristol (; January 22, 1920 – September 18, 2009) was an American journalist who was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism". As a founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he played an influential role in the intellectual ...
; art critic Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
; film and cultural critic Robert Warshow; and sociologist Nathan Glazer
Nathan Glazer (February 25, 1923 – January 19, 2019) was an American sociologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and for several decades at Harvard University. He was a co-editor of the now-defunct policy journal ''The Pu ...
. ''Commentary'' published such rising stars as Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was bor ...
, Daniel Bell
Daniel Bell (May 10, 1919 – January 25, 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading A ...
, Sidney Hook
Sidney Hook (December 20, 1902 – July 12, 1989) was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. After embracing communism in his you ...
, and Irving Howe
Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Early years
Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son of ...
.
Although many or even most of the editors and writers had been socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, Trotskyites, or Stalinists
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...
in the past, that was no longer tolerated. ''Commentary'' articles were anti-Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
and also anti- McCarthyite; it identified and attacked any perceived weakness among liberals on Cold War issues, backing President Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Frankli ...
's policies such as the Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It w ...
, the Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
, and NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. The "soft-on-Communism" position of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO) and Henry A. Wallace came under steady attack. Liberals who hated Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
were annoyed when Irving Kristol wrote at the height of the controversy that "there is one thing that the American people know about Senator McCarthy: he, like them, is unequivocally anti-Communist. About the spokesmen for American liberalism, they feel they know no such thing."
Norman Podhoretz
In the late 1950s the magazine sagged, as Cohen suffered from mental illness and committed suicide. A protégé of Lionel Trilling
Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...
, Norman Podhoretz
Norman Podhoretz (; born January 16, 1930) is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as " paleo- neoconservative". took over in 1960, running the magazine with an iron hand until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz reduced the space given to Jewish issues and moved ''Commentary''s ideology to the left. Circulation rose to 60,000 as the magazine became a mainstay of the Washington liberal elite
Liberal elite, also referred to as the metropolitan elite or progressive elite, is a stereotype of politically liberal people whose education has traditionally opened the doors to affluence, wealth and power and who form a managerial elite. It is ...
in the heyday of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
.
The emergence of the New Left
The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, ...
, which was bitterly hostile to Johnson, to capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
and to universities, angered Podhoretz for what he perceived as its shallowness and hostility to 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 ...
in the 1967 Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
. Articles attacked the New Left on questions ranging from crime, the nature of art, drugs, poverty, to the new egalitarianism; ''Commentary'' said that the New Left was a dangerous anti-American, anti-liberal, and anti-Semitic force. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used ''Commentary'' to attack the Watts riots and liberals who defended it as a just revolution. The shift helped define the emerging 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 cou ...
movement and gave space to disillusioned liberals.
As the readership base shifted to the right, ''Commentary'' filled a vacuum for conservative intellectuals, who otherwise were reliant on William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
's ''National Review
''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...
.'' In March 1975 Moynihan's article "The United States in Opposition" urged America to vigorously defend liberal democratic principles when they were attacked by Soviet Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
and Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the Nor ...
dictatorships at the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
. Moynihan was appointed ambassador to the UN by President Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
in 1975 and was elected to the United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and ...
in 1976. Jeane Kirkpatrick
Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick (née Jordan; November 19, 1926December 7, 2006) was an American diplomat and political scientist who played a major role in the foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration. An ardent anticommunist, she was a l ...
's November 1979 denunciation of the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...
, "Dictatorships and Double Standards", impressed Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter in 1980. In 1981 Reagan appointed Kirkpatrick ambassador to the United Nations and ''Commentary'' reached the apogee of its influence.
Recent years
Norman Podhoretz, who served as editor-in-chief until 1995, was editor-at-large until January 2009. Neal Kozodoy, at ''Commentary'' since 1966, was editor between 1995 and January 2009; he is the magazine's current editor-at-large. Since January 2009 the journal has been edited by John Podhoretz
John Mordecai Podhoretz (; born April 18, 1961) is an American writer. He is the editor of '' Commentary'' magazine, a columnist for the ''New York Post'', the author of several books on politics, and a former speechwriter for Presidents Rona ...
, Norman's son.
The magazine ceased to be affiliated with the AJC in 2007, when Commentary, Inc., an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit enterprise, took over as publisher.
In 2011, the journal donated its archives from 1945 to 1995 to the Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pu ...
at the University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. These included letters and essay revisions.
''Commentary'' prints letters to the editor that comment on various articles three issues earlier. The more critical and lengthy letters tend to be printed first and the more praiseful letters last. The author of the article being discussed almost always replies in a follow-up to his critics. Each issue has several reviews of books on varying topics. ''Commentary'' usually assigns a review to books written by notable contributors to the magazine.
Popular culture
''Commentary'' has been referred to in several Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
films. In ''Annie Hall
''Annie Hall'' is a 1977 American Satire (film and television), satirical Romance film, romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay written by him and Marshall Brickman, and produced by Allen's manager, Charles H. Joff ...
'' (1977), Allen (as character Alvy Singer) makes a pun by saying that he heard that ''Dissent
Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to ...
'' and ''Commentary'' had merged to form "''Dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complication ...
.''" In ''Bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distingui ...
'' (1971), as an old lady is threatened on a subway car, Allen hides his face by holding up an issue of ''Commentary.'' This image is featured at the New York Transit Museum
The New York Transit Museum (also called the NYC Transit Museum) is a museum that displays historical artifacts of the New York City Subway, MTA Regional Bus Operations, bus, and commuter rail systems in the greater New York City metropolitan r ...
in Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, an ...
. In ''Crimes and Misdemeanors
''Crimes and Misdemeanors'' is a 1989 American existential comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars alongside Martin Landau, Mia Farrow, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Orbach, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, and Joanna Gleason.
The ...
'', an issue of ''Commentary'' lies on a character's bedside table.
In his sitcom '' Anything but Love'', stand-up comedian Richard Lewis was often shown holding or reading a copy of ''Commentary''.
Reception and influence
American-Israeli journalist Benjamin Balint Benjamin Balint (born 1976) is an American-Israeli author, journalist, educator, and translator. His 2018 book explores the literary legacy of Franz Kafka.
Writing career
Balint was assistant editor for ''Commentary magazine''. He contributes ...
and former editor at ''Commentary'' described the magazine as the "contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the neoconservative right". Historian and literary critic Richard Pells said that "no other journal of the past half century has been so consistently influential, or so central to the major debates that have transformed the political and intellectual life of the United States."[Quoted from Murray Friedman (ed.): ]
''Commentary'' in American Life
', Philadelphia 2005, p.1, Temple University Press.
Notes
References
* Podhoretz, Norman. ''Breaking Ranks'' (1979), memoir
* Nathan Glazer, Thomas L. Jeffers, Richard Gid Powers, Fred Siegel, Terry Teachout, Ruth R. Wisse et al. in ''Commentary in American Life'', ed. Murray Friedman. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005
Bibliography
* Balint, Benjamin. ''Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right'' (PublicAffairs; 2010) 290 pages
* Ehrman, John. "''Commentary'', the ''Public Interest'', and the Problem of Jewish Conservatism", ''American Jewish History'' 87.2&3 (1999) 159–181. online in Project MUSE
Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 univers ...
, scholarly article by conservative historian
* Franczak, Michael. "Losing the Battle, Winning the War: Neoconservatives versus the New International Economic Order, 1974–82," ''Diplomatic History,'' Volume 43, Issue 5, November 2019, Pages 867–889
Losing the Battle, Winning the War: Neoconservatives versus the New International Economic Order, 1974–82
* Jeffers, Thomas L. ''Norman Podhoretz: A Biography'' (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Further reading
''Weekly Standard'' article on ''Commentary''
''The New York Sun'' article on who attends the annual ''Commentary''-hosted gathering
Nathan Abrams, ''Commentary Magazine 1945–1959: 'A Journal of Significant Thought and Opinion''. Bio on Cohen and ''Commentarys early history]
External links
*
''Commentary'' Finding Aid at the Harry Ransom Center
{{Neoconservatism
1945 establishments in New York (state)
Conservative magazines published in the United States
Jewish magazines published in the United States
Magazines established in 1945
Magazines published in New York City
Neoconservatism
Political magazines published in the United States
American Jewish Committee