Norman Podhoretz

Norman Podhoretz

Commentary

Norman Podhoretz was born in 1930 in Brownsville, Brooklyn to immigrant Jewish parents and attended Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He received a full scholarship to Columbia College, where he became a protégé of Lionel Trilling and received his B.A. in English literature in 1950. Concurrently, he earned a B.A. in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was awarded a Kellett Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship and received a B.A. in literature (1st) and an M.A. from Clare College, Cambridge.  From 1953-1955, he served in the U.S. Army.  In 1960 Mr. Podhoretz became editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine; he remained in that position until his retirement in 1995. In 2004 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.  Mr. Podhoretz’s books include Why Are Jews Liberals? (2009),  The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are (2002), Ex-Friends (1999), The Bloody Crossroads: Where Literature and Politics Meet (1986), Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir (1979), and Making It (1967).