Posted on 12/17/2025 4:14:42 AM PST by DFG
My father died tonight, December 16, a month shy of his 96th birthday. Norman Podhoretz passed peacefully and without pain, with a new translation of The Odyssey on his desk that had been sent to him by his friend Roger Hertog. It sat next to a copy of Alexander Pope’s legendary translation, which he had asked my sister Naomi to order for him so he could compare the two.
At the very end of his life, Norman Podhoretz was his truest self, a man of letters.
His greatest teachers, the men who had the most profound effect on him—Lionel Trilling at Columbia and F.R. Leavis at Cambridge—were critics who believed the life of the mind as expressed in literature was a high and noble calling. And I don’t think it’s bragging to say that he was a great literary critic, the last and maybe finest flowering of the group often called the “Partisan Review crowd”—though he did not write much for PR and published his most remarkable work in Commentary‘s pages, beginning with a review of Bernard Malamud’s first novel, The Natural, pushed at the ripe old age of 23. Our website records he published 145 articles in these pages from 1953 to his final appearance, in a colloquy with me about the magazine, in November 2020.
There will be so much to be said about him in the days and weeks and months to come. I’ll say more, as will many, many others. But right now, what I think you might be most surprised to know about my father is not that he was an astonishingly courageous intellectual force… though he was. Nor that his determination to remain true to his ideas, his country, and his people were actually profoundly costly to him in terms of the hostility that he generated and the friends he lost…though all of that is true. Nor that he changed America and the world with his own work (those 145 articles, two decades of newspaper columns in the New York Post and the Washington Post, and 12 books) and his 35 years at the helm this magazine, unequivocally and inarguably one of the most important editorships in American history…though he did.
What you really need to know is that what mattered most to him was writing. Great writing. Good writing. Clear writing. Honest writing. He was the most literate man I have ever known, possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of the written word in our time and in times past, who found true moral, intellectual, and aesthetic purpose in the act of reading and deciphering and comprehending. And he was himself a prose stylist of magnificence. There is no other word for it, and anyone who says otherwise is judging him not by his sentences but by views he held they do not like. That was a sin against honesty he never committed. There were many writers whose views he abhorred, but whose gifts he would absolutely acknowledge and ruefully refuse to deny.
He often quipped that he would forgive any insult if the person delivering it also said he was a good writer. He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life. And he bound himself fast to his people, his heritage, and his history. His knowledge extended beyond literature to Jewish history, Jewish thinking, Jewish faith, and the Hebrew Bible, with all of which he was intimately familiar and ever fascinated. He made the life of the mind a joyous sport. Through his nine-plus decades journeying fom Brooklyn poverty to Manhattan comfort, he fathered and raised four children, 13 grandchildren, and 16 great-grandchildren. Though the memory is green, I believe his work and his lineage will serve to honor the astonishing contributions he made to the world he has left.
RIP.
“During his career as a neoconservative thinker, Norman Podhoretz has been asked no question more often than “Why are so many Jews liberals?” In this provocative book he sets out to solve this puzzle.RIP.He first offers a fascinating account of anti-Semitism in the West to show the historical roots of Jewish mistrust of the right. But, Podhoretz argues, since the Six Day War of 1967 Jewish allegiance to the left no longer makes sense, and yet most Jews continue supporting the Democratic Party and the liberal agenda.
Reviewing the history of Jewish political attitudes and examining the available evidence, Podhoretz argues against the conventional explanations for Jewish liberalism—finally proposing his own.”
RIP
Many Jews suffer from TLH or Terminal Liberal Hemorrhoids. Without thinking they keep placing Liberal and Left-wing ointments to the condition that plagues their rear ends but nothing seems to provide relief so they keep applying the same treatment, again and again.
Any Jew who continues to support the Left and it’s desired goal to kill Jews needs to have their heads and butts examined.
Don’t worry, I am a Curtis LeMay, cigar chomping Jew.
I used to read Norman Podheretz’ articles in both “Commentary” and “Policy Review”.
He was very intelligent and insightful, and was worth reading. May he rest in peace.
Good for you! Happy Hanukkah!
I didn't know Curtis LeMay was Jewish....
I don’t think he was.
“No, General Curtis LeMay was not Jewish; he was of English and French Huguenot descent, born into a working-class Christian family in Ohio, with no known Jewish ancestry. His background was firmly rooted in American, non-Jewish heritage, with his family moving frequently due to his father’s work as an ironworker. “
AI response on Google.
Intellectual giant once at the vanguard of conservatism. Alas, today the conservative movement has no intellectuals of his caliber. RIP, Dr. Podhoretz.
General LeMay was probably an Anti-Semite but he sure did know how to wage total war. By 1945 LeMay was ready to destroy Japan with tons of Napalm and thousands of 4 engine aircraft.
LeMay MAY have also been involved in removing JFK in 1963...
Which of his books is the best to read first if one is not familiar with his life and works? Amazon has lots available online.
“Why are Jews liberal?”
So sorry to hear this, too! I enjoyed reading his column in the New York Post. Prayers for his loved ones.
Sorry to hear this. The world is a poorer place for his passing.
RIP. But they may want to rephrase that, to honor a man of the word.
He is one of the Reasons I became a Republican.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.