Norman Harold Podhoretz (; January 16, 1930 – December 16, 2025) was an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator. He described his views as "paleo-neoconservative", but only "because [he'd] been one for so long". He was a writer for Commentary magazine, and served as the publication's editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1995.
Podhoretz was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group.
The son of Julius and Helen (Woliner) Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia (then part of Poland, now Ukraine), Norman Harold Podhoretz was born on January 16, 1930, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he was also raised. Podhoretz's family was leftist, with his elder sister joining a socialist youth movement. He skipped two grades and attended the prestigious Boys High School in the borough's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, ultimately graduating third in his class in 1946; his classmates included the prominent Assyriologist William W. Hallo and advertising executive Carl Spielvogel. Following his admission to Harvard University and New York University with partial tuition scholarships, Podhoretz ultimately elected to attend Columbia University when he was granted a full Pulitzer Scholarship.
In 1950, Podhoretz received his BA degree in English literature from Columbia, where he was mentored by Lionel Trilling. He concurrently earned a second bachelor's degree in Hebrew literature from the nearby Jewish Theological Seminary of America; although Podhoretz never intended to enter the rabbinate, his father (who only attended synagogue on the High Holidays) wanted to ensure that his son was nonetheless conversant in "the intellectual tradition of his people", as "a nonobservant New World Jew who ... treasured the Hebraic tradition".
After being awarded the Kellett Fellowship from Columbia and a Fulbright Scholarship, he later received a second B.A. in literature with first-class honors and an Oxbridge MA from Clare College, Cambridge, where he briefly pursued doctoral studies after rejecting a graduate fellowship from Harvard. He also served in the United States Army from 1953 to 1955 as a draftee assigned to the Army Security Agency.
Podhoretz served as Commentary magazine's editor-in-chief from 1960 (when he replaced Elliot E. Cohen) until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz remained Commentary's editor-at-large until his death in late 2025. In 1963, he wrote the essay "My Negro Problem—And Ours", in which he described the oppression he felt from African-Americans as a child, and concluded by calling for a color-blind society and advocating "the wholesale merging of the two races [as] the most desirable alternative for everyone concerned".
From 1981 to 1987, Podhoretz was an adviser to the U.S. Information Agency. From 1995 to 2003, he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2004. The award recognized Podhoretz's intellectual contributions as editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine and as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Podhoretz was one of the original signatories of the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century founded in 1997. The aforementioned organization sent a letter to U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1998 advocating the removal by force of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Podhoretz received the Guardian of Zion Award from the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University on May 24, 2007.
He served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani in his 2008 presidential campaign. The same year, he publicly advocated an American attack on Iran.
Podhoretz's 2009 book Why Are Jews Liberals? questions why American Jews for decades have been dependable Democrats, often supporting the party by margins of better than two-to-one, even in years of Republican landslides.
Podhoretz attended a Conservative Jewish synagogue, noted for its emphasis on serious praying, active participation by its members and religious services.
Podhoretz was married to author Midge Decter from 1956 until her death in 2022, and together they had two children: syndicated columnist and Commentary editor-in-chief John Podhoretz and American-Israeli journalist Ruthie Blum. Norman Podhoretz said in early 2019, of his large family and its relation to his political views: "[I]f [Donald Trump] doesn't win in 2020, I would despair of the future. I have 13 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren, and they are hostages to fortune. So I don't have the luxury of not caring what's going to happen after I'm gone." Podhoretz lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Podhoretz died from pneumonia in Manhattan on December 16, 2025, at the age of 95.
Initially a staunch liberal, Podhoretz moved Commentary to the left editorially when he took over the magazine. However, he became increasingly critical of the New Left and gradually moved rightward as the 1960s wore on. By the 1970s, he was a leading member of the neoconservative movement.
In the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Podhoretz argued strongly for military intervention, claiming that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the United States.
After the 9/11 attack and more than a year before the start of the War in Iraq, Podhoretz wrote in February 2002 that
"There is no doubt that Saddam already possesses large stores of chemical and biological weapons, and may ... be 'on the precipice of nuclear power.' ... Some urge that we ... concentrate on easier targets first. Others contend that the longer we wait, the more dangerous Saddam will grow. Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power."