Norman Podhoretz was born in Brooklyn on January 16, 1930, to Julius Podhoretz and his wife Helen Woliner, Jewish immigrants from Poland. He had a brilliant academic career, skipping two grades and graduating third in his high school class. He attended Columbia University with a full Pulitzer Scholarship, earning a BA in English literature and concurrently studied Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He received a master’s degree from Clare College, Cambridge.
In 1960, Podhoretz began a 35-year career as editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine, when initially he was a political liberal. Disillusioned with the left, he became a neoconservative, and during Ronald Reagan’s administration, Podhoretz served as an advisor to the U.S. Information Agency. George W. Bush awarded him the presidential medal of freedom.
Podhoretz attends a Conservative synagogue and was awarded as a Guardian of Zion by Bar-Ilan University.
He was married to author and antifeminist Midge Decter from 1956 to her death in 2022. Both of their children are journalists: John succeeded his father as Commentary’s editor-in-chief; Ruthie Blum is the web editor at The Algemeiner Journal.
Tomorrow, January 17: Shari Lewis.
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SDJW Condensation of a Wikipedia article.