Commentary

About Commentary

Commentary is a monthly American magazine of religion, politics, Judaism, Israel, and social and cultural issues, based in New York City. Founded in 1945 by the American Jewish Committee under founding editor Elliot E. Cohen, it developed into the leading post-World War II journal of Jewish affairs and, under the long editorship of Norman Podhoretz from 1960 to 1995, became the flagship publication of the neoconservative movement. Now published independently by Commentary Inc. and edited by John Podhoretz, it appears eleven times per year, with a combined July-August issue, and maintains a website at commentary.org. The magazine has been one of the most influential journals of opinion in American intellectual life for eight decades.

Founding and Early Years

Commentary was the successor to the Contemporary Jewish Record, which the American Jewish Committee had published from 1938 to 1945. Launched in 1945, the magazine was designed to meet the need for a journal of significant thought and opinion on Jewish affairs and contemporary issues. Its first editor, Elliot E. Cohen, was a Southern-born Jew educated at Yale who had previously edited the celebrated Menorah Journal. Under Cohen, who served from 1945 to 1959, Commentary was a general journal of the highest quality, lively and relevant to the pressing issues of the national and world scene. It sought 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. The magazine reached a wide if numerically small audience, covering matters of universal interest alongside specifically Jewish concerns in a broad-based, intellectually serious tone.

The Norman Podhoretz Era

In 1960, at just thirty years old, Norman Podhoretz became editor-in-chief, beginning a thirty-five-year tenure that would transform the magazine and American intellectual life. Podhoretz, a Brooklyn-born literary critic educated at Columbia and Cambridge, had begun contributing to Commentary in the early 1950s and became associate editor in 1956. Initially he moved the magazine to the left, serializing Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd and publishing articles advocating unilateral disarmament, with contributors including James Baldwin, Alfred Kazin, and Irving Howe. But disillusioned with the New Left's anti-American sentiment and moral relativism, Podhoretz gradually moved the magazine to the right. By the 1970s and 1980s, Commentary had become the leading platform for neoconservatism, critiquing multiculturalism, the sexual revolution, and Soviet détente while championing a robust defense of Western values and a strong American foreign policy. His alignment with the Republican Party deepened during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Podhoretz died on December 16, 2025, in New York City at the age of 95, and Commentary devoted a full issue to his intellectual legacy two months later.

Neoconservatism's Home

Commentary was the vehicle for the conception, gestation, and transformation of neoconservatism from a small intellectual movement into a philosophy at the center of American government. The magazine published landmark essays by Jeane Kirkpatrick, whose 1979 article on dictatorships and double standards helped shape Reagan-era foreign policy and who went on to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, and by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose Commentary essays contributed to his later career in the U.S. Senate. The magazine provided a voice for the anti-Stalinist left turned neoconservative, and its writers developed the arguments for assertive American leadership, moral clarity in foreign affairs, and skepticism toward utopian social engineering that defined the movement. After the September 11 attacks, Podhoretz was a vocal supporter of the Iraq War and the Bush Doctrine, framing the conflict as part of a broader struggle against global terrorism.

Notable Writers and Contributors

Commentary's roster of contributors reads like a history of twentieth-century American letters and political thought. Early decades featured correspondence and contributions from figures such as Hannah Arendt, Saul Bellow, William F. Buckley Jr., George Orwell, and Philip Roth, as documented in the magazine's archives. Under Podhoretz, the magazine published the leading neoconservative intellectuals of the era, including Irving Kristol, Midge Decter, and Nathan Glazer. The magazine's literary criticism was a significant force in American letters, and its pages hosted debates that shaped the culture wars of the late twentieth century. The complete archives from 1945 to 1995 were donated to the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center in 2011, where they serve as a resource for the social and intellectual history of the postwar years.

Editorial Philosophy

Commentary's editorial philosophy centers on the defense of Western civilization, American strength, and the security of Israel, combined with a commitment to high literary and intellectual standards. The magazine covers religion, politics, Jewish affairs, and culture from a neoconservative perspective, with a particular emphasis on the Middle East, antisemitism, and the threats posed by authoritarian regimes and radical movements. It has been a consistent advocate of the U.S.-Israel relationship, arguing that Israel's security is inseparable from American strategic interests. The magazine combines political argument with book reviews, cultural criticism, and essays on Jewish thought, maintaining the blend of politics and letters that characterized its founding.

Independence and Organization

Commentary was long published by the American Jewish Committee, though it maintained editorial independence. In 2006 it became fully independent of the AJC and is now published by Commentary Inc. The current editor is John Podhoretz, Norman Podhoretz's son, who took over the editorship and has continued the magazine's neoconservative orientation while adapting it to new political realities. The executive editor is Abe Greenwald. The magazine appears eleven times per year, monthly with a combined July-August issue, and reported a circulation of 26,000 in 2017. Like other journals of opinion, it operates on a combination of subscription revenue, donations, and foundation support.

The Post-Podhoretz Era

Under John Podhoretz, Commentary has navigated the decline of neoconservative influence within the Republican Party and the rise of populist and isolationist currents on the right. The magazine has remained a defender of the Reaganite tradition of muscular American internationalism, often finding itself at odds with the Trump-era Republican Party's skepticism toward alliances and foreign intervention. It has continued to publish leading conservative writers on foreign policy, domestic politics, and culture, and its podcast and digital offerings have expanded its reach. The magazine's stance on Israel has remained steadfast, and it has been a prominent voice on the rise of antisemitism in the United States and Europe.

Criticism and Controversy

Commentary has been a polarizing publication throughout its history. Critics on the left have accused it of warmongering, particularly for its support of the Iraq War, and of intolerance toward dissent on Israel. Critics on the right, particularly from the paleoconservative and libertarian traditions, have attacked its interventionism and its influence on Republican foreign policy. The magazine's journey from the anti-Stalinist left to the neoconservative right has itself been the subject of extensive scholarly and journalistic analysis. Woody Allen once joked in the film Annie Hall that Commentary and the leftist Dissent had merged and renamed themselves Dysentery, a testament to the magazine's prominence in the cultural imagination. Defenders argue that the magazine's record, from its early civil rights advocacy to its Cold War moral clarity, reflects a consistent commitment to liberal democratic values.

Legacy and Influence

Few magazines have shaped American political thought as profoundly as Commentary. It was the incubator of neoconservatism, the movement that transformed the Republican Party's foreign policy and influenced American statecraft for decades. Its early decades documented the assimilation of Jews into the mainstream of American life and the construction of a distinctively American Jewish intellectual identity. The magazine's archives, now housed at the Harry Ransom Center, are an invaluable resource for historians of the postwar era. As it enters its ninth decade, Commentary remains a distinctive voice in American journalism: a monthly journal of ideas that continues to argue, in the tradition of its founders, that serious thought about politics, religion, and culture matters.