Norman Podhoretz, the pugnacious editor and neoconservative pioneer who died on Tuesday at the age of 95, charted a protean trajectory through American politics and intellectual discourse, rising to prominence as a leading champion of a muscular foreign policy vision conjoined with a fierce support for Israel that influenced such presidents as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Despite his early political conversion from staunch liberal to conservative trailblazer, Podhoretz — the always-ambitious son of a Yiddish-speaking milkman from Eastern Europe who was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn — remained consistent in his commitment to defending Israel as well as promoting the Jewish ideals that guided his social and professional ascent.

During his 35-year tenure helming Commentary— from 1960 to 1995 — he established the periodical as a lightning rod of disputatious ideas that helped drive the conservative movement, while at the same time building his reputation as an estimable thinker in Jewish American debate of the mid-20th century. 

Under his editorial stewardship, Podhoretz transformed the magazine — then published by the American Jewish Committee — into a pro-Israel force that significantly shaped American foreign policy in the Middle East while helping steer the GOP to a more instinctive embrace of the Jewish state as a key ally.

“The neoconservatives played a pivotal role in providing the intellectual firepower for the case for Israel,” Jacob Heilbrunn, the author of a book about the movement Podhoretz founded, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday. “They did that not only by arguing that Israel was a vital outpost in opposing the spread of communism in the Middle East, but also in forging and defending the rise of the evangelicals who supported Israel.”

Absent Podhoretz and his ideological comrades including Irving Kristol, another neoconservative leader, “I don’t think that you would have had the intellectual justification for defending Israel inside the GOP,” Heilbrunn said, noting that the party had previously been “hostile to Israel.”

Podhoretz, who wrote a dozen books including his score-settling debut memoir, Making It, published in 1967, was an erstwhile liberal who abandoned the left-wing New York intellectual milieu that nurtured his rise and turned to neoconservatism in the 1960s, after growing disillusioned with a counterculture he viewed as increasingly hostile to Israel following the Six Day War.

“Podhoretz was the founder of neoconservatism,” Joshua Muravchik, an author and like-minded foreign policy expert, told JI, noting that the “role is sometimes ascribed to Irving Kristol. In truth, there were two strands.”

Kristol, he argued, “led a group of thinkers who reckoned with the limits of social engineering and the welfare state” — while Podhoretz “led a deeper project, the rediscovery or reassertion of the moral greatness of America, of democracy and of Western civilization.”

“This made him not only a great American patriot but a great Jewish patriot,” he said, “because Israel is a precious, against-all-odds outpost of Western civilization and because the roots of American civic culture and Western civilization are found in the Hebrew bible.”

In publishing major articles by the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick as well as Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, Podhoretz “set a high standard for Jewish intellectual periodicals” while also playing “a role in opening up the Jewish community to more conservative views that had not previously been admitted,” said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.

“Even those who didn’t agree with him I think respected his standard,” Sarna, who published his first article in Commentary in his mid-20s, told JI in an interview. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels indebted to Norman.”

Mark Gerson, an author and businessman who interviewed Podhoretz while working on his 1997 book, The Neoconservative Vision, called the late editor “a towering intellectual” and a “great man of ideas who made Commentary, when he took it over, one of the best magazines or publications ever.”

“It was always interesting, always intellectually serious, always rigorous, always challenging,” he said. Podhoretz, who was otherwise recognized as an astute if often acid-penned literary critic, “had a unique ability to come up with the most interesting ideas, to tell the most visceral truths and to recruit some people who became defining the writers of his generation,” Gerson told JI.

The magazine is now edited by Podhoretz’s son, John, who wrote in a tribute on Tuesday that his father’s “knowledge extended beyond literature to Jewish history, Jewish thinking, Jewish faith, and the Hebrew Bible.”

“Norman believed that words matter, and arguments matter, and his leadership of Commentary was a 30-year effort at putting forward the best arguments in defense of America, Israel, the West and the Jews,” said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Podhoretz’s stepson-in-law. “He looked for the best writers and champions of this cause, from Moynihan and Kirkpatrick to dozens of young voices, and he engaged them in this noble cause.”

“There was no magic formula beyond logic, language and unwavering moral commitment,” Abrams told JI. 

Podhoretz, of course, had many critics on the left and right — including among some former writers. Robert Alter, the renowned biblical translator who frequently contributed to Commentary, said he had “mixed thoughts about Norman.”

“Early in his career, he was admirable in attracting promising young writers,” he told JI on Wednesday. “His staunch defense of Israel, as the American left moved toward anti-Israel positions after 1967, was politically valuable.”

But while Podhoretz had “made Commentary the central journal in American intellectual life” during the 1960s, his politics had, by the end of the decade, “hardened into a rather rigid neoconservatism,” he added. “The eventual result was that Commentary became a kind of sectarian publication with a much smaller readership.”

In recent years, the movement Podhoretz led has also faced backlash from isolationist and America First conservatives who have pejoratively invoked the term “neoconservative” as representative of the sort of hawkish interventionism that helped lead the U.S. into war in Iraq and other quagmires across the Middle East.

Though his movement was usurped by President Donald Trump, Podhoretz — unlike other fellow neoconservatives — backed his campaign in 2016, citing concerns about Hillary Clinton’s support for the Iran nuclear agreement which he viewed as disastrous. In a characteristically cutting explanation, Podhoretz said at the time that he skeptically viewed Trump as “Pat Buchanan without the antisemitism,” underscoring the extent to which his attachment to Israel fueled his political thinking.

But even as the ideals that Podhoretz had long championed have largely “been steamrollered now by Trump,” said Heilbrunn, the scrappy editor and public intellectual “will be there in the conservative pantheon” and “played a key role in reshaping the Republican Party.”

“And who knows, neoconservatism is a protean movement,” Heilbrunn speculated. “It can always make a comeback.”

One of the defining characteristics of our age is the utter lack of institutional gatekeepers and red lines against hate in our politics and culture. Extremist rhetoric, antisemitism, racism and approval of political violence are all becoming commonplace in our discourse, to the point where Americans have become numb to the crazy. 

Just take a look at the headlines over the last month of scandals that have captured national attention — and would have been unthinkable not long ago. 

1. Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew himself from consideration yesterday after belated backlash over his history of racist and antisemitic comments — including a recently revealed text message chain where he said he has a “Nazi streak.” We reported on Ingrassia’s extremist record in May, revealing a string of antisemitic and racist public social media posts, including this shocking comment on X days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack: “I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was yet another psyop.”

Ingrassia also has been an ally of Nick Fuentes, a virulently antisemitic podcast host and far-right influencer who has long trafficked in Holocaust denial. He attended a rally in 2024 for Fuentes, and in 2023 defended Fuentes after he was banned from Twitter.

Ample documentation of Ingrassia’s bigotry didn’t stunt his nomination, though the new shocking revelations from the private text chain caused key Republicans — most notably, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rick Scott (R-FL) and James Lankford (R-OK) — to withdraw their support and end his chances of getting confirmed.  

But the fact that he got as close as he did to receiving a hearing for the plum role shows just how much antisemitism is becoming normalized.

2. Graham Platner, the embattled far-left candidate in Maine’s Senate race, already under scrutiny over social media posts declaring himself a communist and calling the police “bastards,” acknowledged he has a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest that his just-departed political director characterized as “anti-Semitic.” A former acquaintance of Platner’s said he called the tattoo “my Totenkopf,” referring to a symbol adopted by a Nazi SS unit.

Platner is facing Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the favorite of the party establishment (for good reason) in the Democratic Senate primary. Platner has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), praised by several progressive senators and backed by a number of leading labor unions, including the UAW.

Despite Platner’s remarkable baggage and Nazi-themed tattoo, Sanders still is standing behind him. ”I personally think he is an excellent candidate. We don’t have enough candidates in this country who are prepared to take on the powers that be and fight for the working class,” Sanders said Tuesday, when pressed by reporters about the tattoo allegations.

3. A Young Republicans group chat from this year, with 2,900 pages of comments leaked to Politico, was filled with racist and antisemitic texts, with participants including elected lawmakers and up-and-coming professionals in GOP politics. Peter Giunta, a Young Republicans official, joked “I love Hitler” in the chat and said everyone who voted against him for a leadership position “is going to the gas chamber.” Joe Maligno, the general counsel for the New York Young Republicans, later responded: “Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic.”

Politico characterized the group conversations as featuring a “dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty” that played out in “often dark, vivid fashion” — and noted “the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing” as a common theme of the discourse. The chat included the N-word a dozen times.

But while many Republicans quickly spoke out against the unadulterated hate in the conversation, Vice President JD Vance downplayed the episode as young people “telling stupid jokes.” “I refuse to join the pearl clutching,” Vance said on X, arguing the private conversation was less significant than the scandal involving Jay Jones, the Virginia Democratic attorney general nominee who sent texts wishing political violence against a GOP colleague and his family.

4. Jay Jones’ text messages in 2021 saying his GOP colleague, former House Speaker Todd Gilbert deserved to be killed and calling Gilbert’s children “little fascists” shocked the political world — and upended a race in which Democrats were initially favored. The comments were especially shocking amid a rise in political violence, coming after the assassination of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk and the attempted killing of Trump in the last two years. 

But while many Democrats condemned the comments, no prominent members of the party withdrew their endorsement of the nominee. Even as polls show a small but critical mass of persuadable voters have switched their support to GOP Attorney General Jason Miyares, Jones has maintained near-universal partisan support. 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), reflecting the general Democratic sentiment in the state, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Those texts, private texts with a colleague, cannot be defended. They cannot be defended. But Jay Jones has apologized earnestly,” Kaine said. 

***

All of these recent episodes are bad enough on their own. But taken together, they are indicative of a deeper problem in our culture. It’s a telling sign of the times that so many political leaders have instinctively rallied around the partisan flag instead of speaking out with the moral clarity that, not long ago, came naturally for them. 

To be sure, there have been some pockets of political principle, mixed in with a smattering of self-interest. The opposition of several key Senate Republicans to Ingrassia’s nomination cut short his political aspirations, at least for now. Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia governor, hasn’t affirmed her endorsement for Jay Jones even as she won’t distance herself from him, either. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) endorsed Mills’ candidacy, shortly after news of Platner’s tattoos was revealed. 

But these are the exceptions to the rule, and the half-hearted nature of the distancing underscores how difficult taking on a radicalized base is in our polarized political world. 

This is the type of environment in which antisemitism is thriving — a nihilistic body politic with no rules, standards or expectations for respectable behavior. And it’s as much a demand-side problem, with voters growing numb and desensitized towards growing extremism, as it is about the supply of politicians catering to their constituents. Until Americans put their principles ahead of partisanship, we’re likely to see this dynamic continue to worsen.

After a tumultuous decade in American politics, both major parties are undergoing ideological and generational shifts that are likely to redefine America’s standing in the world — and its relationship with Israel.

On the left, a new generation of lawmakers from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, many with more critical views of Israel than those who came before them, is making gains in major cities, state capitals and on Capitol Hill. On the right, the ascendance of the isolationist MAGA movement and the decline in support for Israel among younger evangelical Christians, traditionally a bastion of support for the Jewish state, is challenging what has long been traditional, unequivocal GOP support for Israel.

Longtime observers of the U.S.-Israel relationship with whom JI spoke over the weekend expressed concern that Jerusalem has not developed a strategic long-term approach to deal with the emerging political realities in the U.S.

When asked if he believed there’s a serious effort in Jerusalem to address the longterm political challenges in the U.S., former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren was succinct: “I do not.”

The U.S.-Israel relationship, Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, told JI on Sunday, “has never been in bigger trouble.” What’s so significant about this moment, he said, is that “the erosion is happening in both parties.”

In the past, Halevi explained, “we could always rely on one party or the other to bail us out. And of course, in the past, it was usually the Democrats, and the fact that the erosion is now beginning in the Republican Party should be sending major, major alarms in Jerusalem, but I don’t see any indication of that.” 

Former Knesset member Einat Wilf told JI that the warning signs had been evident for years, and that she had pushed for conversations on the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) began to criticize Israel. “I remember at the time I started talking with people,” Wilf recalled, “And I told them, ‘Look, if I’m Israel, then I’m putting [together] a team now. Doesn’t have to be overt, but I’m putting [together] a team now that begins to plan for a world where we don’t have such strong support.’”

Wilf said that the idea of Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a future president, which would have been “a fringe scenario not long a time ago,” is no longer such a long shot. “Now, it’s almost the mainstream scenario. So we need to take that into consideration. We need to look at it as at least a serious or likely scenario.”

The problem, Halevi said, is that Israel’s government is not thinking long term. “It’s all day-to-day, and it’s all tactical, and it’s not strategic. What happens after Trump and Netanyahu? Scorched earth, as far as [Netanyahu is] concerned. So there’s no one in the government thinking seriously about the relationship with Washington, because he didn’t allow that. It all has to go through him. It goes through him and [Strategic Affairs Minister Ron] Dermer.”

America’s shifting political winds “are not existential issues for Israel, but they’re very, very serious strategic issues for Israel,” Oren said.

Much of the concern from the activist wings of both parties in recent months has been about U.S. military support for Israel amid the IDF’s campaign in Gaza. Lawmakers on the far left and far right have advocated for rolling back military support for Israel. But that sentiment is being to percolate into the mainstream — note former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s opposition earlier this month to a new Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel, ahead of the current MOU’s expiration in 2028.  

Oren had suggested in 2021 a rethinking of U.S. military aid to Israel, from a traditional “donor-to-recipient” model to “a collaborative relationship based on both countries’ interests and strengths.” That sort of cooperation, he suggested at the time, “would bring immediate benefits to American and Israeli security and strengthen their abilities to counter common threats.”

Such a redefined military relationship with the U.S. would likely serve to combat concerns from the isolationist branch of the GOP over entrenchment in foreign conflicts at a time when such engagement is unpopular among the MAGA wing of the party. And it would address, to some degree, concerns from progressive Democrats, some of whom are pushing the “Block the Bombs” bill to end the U.S.’ sale of offensive weapons to Israel.

But ultimately, Israel is at its best strategically and militarily when it gives itself time and runway to prepare for future challenges and threats. Its wars against Hamas and Hezbollah have underscored the results of Israel’s long-term planning: Hezbollah’s dismantlement as a serious threat came swiftly and as the result of years of preparation, while, nearly two years after the start of the Israel’s war in Gaza, Hamas remains in power, holding both Israelis and the entire enclave hostage as Israel fights an elusive threat on the ground and a losing battle for public opinion around the world.

Those with whom JI spoke agreed that taking on an evolvingU.S. political reality now will help future Israeli governments address the long-term challenges facing the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“We’re a crisis-oriented society. That’s partly our strength, that helps us cope, because we don’t think too far in advance,” Halevi said. “It helps us. It keeps us from getting too depressed. But the downside is that you don’t have the kind of serious, strategic conversations that we desperately need, and certainly we should be having those conversations now about what happens after Trump, what happens if we find ourselves stranded without any major party to rely on.”