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[[Image:12306 cover full.png|right|thumb|''Commentary'', June 2007 issue.]]

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'''Commentary''' is a monthly magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues; founded by the [[American Jewish Committee]] in 1945. By 1960 its editor was [[Norman Podhoretz]], a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the [[anti-communism left]]. The magazine was one of the leading voices of [[neoconservatism]] by 1976, and remains so.

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'''Commentary''' is a monthly magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues; founded by the [[American Jewish Committee]] in 1945. By 1960 its editor was [[Norman Podhoretz]], a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the [[anti-communism left]]. The magazine was one of the leading voices of [[neoconservatism]] by 1976, and remains so today, although in the 21st century it has less influence than before.

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==History==

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''Commentary'' was the successor to the ''Contemporary Jewish Record.'' When the ''Record'''s editor died in 1944, its publisher, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) consulted with New York intellectuals including [[Daniel Bell]] and literary critic [[Lionel Trilling]]. They recommended the AJC hire Elliot Cohen (1899-1959) to start a new journal. He had been an editor of a Jewish cultural magazine and was now a fundraiser.

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''Commentary'' had the mission being a nonpartisan journal focusing on Jewish affairs and other contemporary issues--a sort of Jewish ''Harper's,'' only more scholarly. Cohen designed the new magazine to reconnect assimilated Jews and Jewish intellectuals with the broader, more traditional and very liberal Jewish community. At the same time ''Copmmentary'' would bring the ideas of the young Jewish intellectuals 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 American culture and values.

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Cohen stated his grand design in the first issue:

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:"With Europe devastated, there falls upon us here in the United States a far greater share of the responsibility for carrying forward, in a creative way, our common Jewish cultural and spiritual heritage...to harmonize heritage and country into a true sense of at-home-ness."

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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."

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Cohen broght on board strong editors who themselves wrote important essays, including Irving Kristol; art critic Clement Greenberg; film and cultural critic Robert Warshow; and sociologist [[Nathan Glazer]]. ''Commentary'' paid well and published such rising stars as [[Hannah Arendt]], Daniel Bell, [[Sidney Hook]], and [[Irving Howe]].

==Current Staff==

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:[http://www.commentarymagazine.com/ ''Commentary'' online]

:[http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/ Contentions], ''Commentary'' blog.

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: [http://www.commentarymagazine.com/searcharchive.cfm Archive of back issues]

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==Further reading==

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* 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]], scholarly article by conservative historian

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* Podhoretz, Norman. ''Breaking Ranks'' (1979), memoir

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[[category:publications]]

[[category:Conservatives]]

[[category:Neoconservative]]

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