Commentary (magazine)

Commentary (magazine)

Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. Besides its strong coverage of cultural issues, it provided a strong voice for the anti-Stalinist left. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, originally a mainstream liberal Democrat. He and his magazine moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s. It became a leading voice of neoconservatism by 1976, and remains so today, although in the 21st century it has less influence than before. Benjamin Balint says it was the "Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right" Historian Richard Pells concludes that "no other journal of the past half century has been so consistently influential, or so central to the major debates that have transformed the political and intellectual life of the United States."