Jews and the 2008 Election

Obama's overwhelming victory once again shattered the Republican Party's hopes for the Jewish vote.

From the Editor: A Magazine and Its Mission

In the inaugural issue of this magazine, which was published in November 1945, its founder and editor, Elliot E. Cohen, offered a masterful summary of the role an intellectual journal can play in a free society. “In the search for light on the basic issues of peace and freedom and human destiny which challenge all mankind,” he wrote, “COMMENTARY hopes to be of service.”

Iraq’s Progress

Letters in response to Peter Wehner's "Liberals and the Surge."

“Raw Concrete”

Letters in response to Michael Lewis's "The Architect and the Machine."

Royal Prerogrative

Letters in response to Robert Satloff's review of Lion of Jordan.

The Madoff Scandal and the Future of American Jewry

Having been burned by their trust in a co-religionist swindler, Jewish philanthropies must evolve to avoid future disasters and allocate scarce resources to ensure the community's long-term-survival.

The Meaning of Sarah Palin

FROM OUR FEBRUARY ISSUE. The outcry over the woman from Wasilla revealed both a bright future for cultural populism properly leavened by ideas and the intellectual elite's undemocratic disdain for politicians bereft of a popular pedigree.

India’s Time of Reckoning

The Mumbai massacre struck a stunning blow to India's ruling class. Will it finally spur the country to get serious about fighting its war on Islamic terror?

The Iranian Gambit in Gaza

Iran's sponsorship of Hamas has long been a cause of political instability inside the Palestinian body politic. Israel's incursion into Gaza raises new alarums about the ultimate goal of the Iran-Hamas alliance.

The Baby Moguls, Abbie Hoffman, and Me

A reminiscence of Hollywood in 1980, with radical politics and show-business affluence on a collision course.

The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff

Dr. A. Jerome Minkoff, family practitioner, three years a widower and coming up on his sixty-fourth birthday, met Larissa Friedman, two years into her widowhood and fifty-two, at a charity dinner at the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago for ALS, dreaded, goddamn Lou Gehrig’s Disease, from which both their spouses had died.

The Trouble With Alfred Hitchcock

His visual acuity was both his glory and his failing.

The Television Show That Says You’re Better Than Your Parents

Despite the hype, Mad Men is little more than a lackluster exercise in generational self-righteousness.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Innocent Abroad by Martin Indyk

So Damn Much Money by Robert G. Kaiser

Sex in Crisis by Dagmar Herzog

Emily Post by Laura Claridge