Full Name Midge Rosenthal Name Midge Decter | Role Journalist Education New York University | |
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Born July 25, 1927 (age 96) ( 1927-07-25 ) Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. Occupation Journalist, author, writer Spouse Norman Podhoretz (m. 1956) Children John Podhoretz, Rachel Abrams, Ruth Podhoretz, Naomi Decter Books An Old Wife's Tale: My Seven, Rumsfeld: The Making of, Always Right: Selected, Liberal parents - radical ch, The new chastity and other Similar People Norman Podhoretz, Rachel Abrams, Elliott Abrams, John Podhoretz | ||
Midge decter quotes
Midge Rosenthal Decter (born July 25, 1927) is an American journalist and author.
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Life and career
Decter was born into a Jewish family in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Rose (née Calmenson) and Harry Rosenthal, a sporting goods merchant. She attended the University of Minnesota, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and New York University, but did not graduate from any of them.
She was Assistant Editor at Midstream, then the secretary to the then-editor of Commentary, Robert Warshow. Later she was the executive editor of Harper's under Willie Morris. She then began working in publishing as an editor at Basic Books and Legacy Books. Her writing has been published in Commentary, First Things, The Atlantic, National Review, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, and the American Spectator.
Together with Donald Rumsfeld, Decter is the former co-chair of the Committee for the Free World and one of the original champions of the neoconservative movement with her spouse, Norman Podhoretz. She is also a founder of the Independent Women's Forum, and was founding treasurer for the Northcote Parkinson Fund, founded and chaired by John Train. She is a member of the board of trustees for the Heritage Foundation. She is also a board member of the Center for Security Policy and the Clare Boothe Luce Fund. She is also a member of the Philadelphia Society and she was, for a time, its president. She is also a senior fellow at the Institute of Religion and Public Life. She is one of the signatories to Statement of Principles for the Project for the New American Century. Decter serves on the national advisory board of Accuracy in Media. In 2008, Midge Decter received the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom.
She is the mother of conservative columnists Ruthie Blum and John Podhoretz, children of Norman Podhoretz. She is also the mother, by her first marriage, of Rachel Decter (1951–2013), who married Elliott Abrams in 1980.