Commentary is a monthly American magazine on religion, Judaism, and politics, as well as social and cultural issues. Founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945 under Elliot E. Cohen, editor from 1945 to 1959, Commentary magazine developed into the leading postwar journal of Jewish affairs. The periodical strove to construct a new American Jewish identity while processing the events of the Holocaust, the formation of the State of Israel, and the Cold War. Norman Podhoretz edited the magazine in its heyday from 1960 to 1995. Besides its coverage of cultural issues, Commentary provided a voice for the anti-Stalinist left. As Podhoretz shifted from his original ideological beliefs as a liberal Democrat to neoconservatism in the 1970s and 1980s, he moved the magazine with him to the right and toward the Republican Party.
Robert L. Heilbroner was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some 20 books, Heilbroner was best known for The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (1953), a survey of the lives and contributions of famous economists, notably Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.
The Social Register is a semi-annual publication in the United States that indexes the members of American high society. First published in the 1880s by newspaper columnist Louis Keller, it was later acquired by Malcolm Forbes. Since 2014, it has been owned by Christopher Wolf.
Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novelist who parlayed his experiences into books exploring the experiences and psychology of American polite society and old money. His dry, ironic works of fiction continue the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton. He wrote his novels initially under the name Andrew Lee, the name of an ancestor who cursed any descendant who drank or smoked.
Charles Alan Murray is an American political scientist. He is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
Norman Podhoretz is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as "paleo-neoconservative". He is a writer for Commentary magazine, and previously served as the publication's editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1995.
Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician. His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success; the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.
Burr Gore Steers is an American actor, screenwriter, and director. His films include Igby Goes Down (2002) and 17 Again (2009). He is a nephew of writer Gore Vidal.
Ronald Chernow is an American writer, journalist, popular historian, and biographer. He has written bestselling historical fiction novels.
James Coats Auchincloss was an American businessman and Republican Party politician who represented northern coastal region of New Jersey in the United States House of Representatives from 1943–1965. His district consisted of Monmouth County, Ocean County, and the part of Middlesex County south of the Raritan River.
Hugh Dudley Auchincloss Jr. was an American stockbroker and lawyer who became the second husband of Nina S. Gore, mother of Gore Vidal, and also the second husband of Janet Lee Bouvier, the mother of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Caroline Lee Bouvier.
Joseph Seligman was an American banker and businessman who founded J. & W. Seligman & Co. He was the patriarch of what became known as the Seligman family in USA and was subsequently related to the wealthy Guggenheim family through Peggy Guggenheim's mother Florette.
Stephen Gardner Birmingham was an American author known for his social histories of wealthy American families, often focusing on ethnicity — Jews, African-Americans, Irish, and the Anglo-Dutch. He also wrote several novels, also about wealthy people.
Dani Shapiro is an American writer, the author of five novels including Family History (2003) and Black & White (2007) and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion (1998), Devotion (2010), Hourglass (2017), and Inheritance (2019). Her new novel, Signal Fires, will publish by Knopf in fall 2022. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Elle. In February 2019, she created an original podcast on iHeart Radio called Family Secrets.
Ze'ev Chafets is an American-Israeli author and columnist.
Adolph Lewisohn was a German Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist. He is the namesake of Lewisohn Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University, as well as the former Lewisohn Stadium at the City College of New York. Time magazine called him "one of the most intelligent and effective workers on human relationships in the U.S."
Geoffrey Theodore Hellman was an American journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker.
Our Gang was a series of American comedy short films originally released between 1922 and 1944.
Isaac Moses was a Jewish merchant who helped establish the Bank of North America in 1781.
Lawrence J. Barkwell was a Canadian author, editor, historian and lecturer, best known for his comprehensive writings on the Métis Nation and Culture. He served as senior historian at Manitoba Métis Federation’s Louis Riel Institute from 2006 until his death in September 2019. He was a member of the board of directors of the Friends of Upper Fort Garry. He was Honorary Elder for the St. Norbert Parish la Barrière Métis Council.
