Leon Wieseltier

{{short description|American critic and magazine editor (born 1952)}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Leon Wieseltier

|image = LeonWieseltier2015.jpg

|caption = Wieseltier in 2015

|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1952|6|14|mf=y}}

|birth_place = New York City, U.S.

|alma_mater = {{ubl|Columbia University|Balliol College, Oxford|Harvard University}}

|awards = Dan David Prize (2013)

|occupation = {{hlist|Editor|critic}}

|spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Mahnaz Ispahani|1985|1994|end = divorced}}|{{marriage|Jennifer Bradley|2000|end = divorced}}}}

}}

Leon Wieseltier ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|v|iː|z|əl|t|ɪər}} {{respell|VEE|zuhl|_|teer}}; born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of The New Republic. He was a contributing editor and critic at The Atlantic until 2017, when the magazine fired him following allegations and an admission by Wieseltier of multiple instances of sexual harassment. In 2020, he became the editor of Liberties, a quarterly literary review.

Early life and education

Wieseltier was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Stella (Backenroth) and Mark Wieseltier, who were Holocaust survivors from Poland.{{cite news |title=U.S. Jewish author Leon Wieseltier: Jewish state won't last unless Israeli-Palestinian conflict solved |agency=Associated Press |url=http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.528984 |newspaper=Haaretz|date=June 10, 2013 |accessdate=October 24, 2013}}{{Cite magazine|last=Grove|first=Lloyd|authorlink=Lloyd Grove| date = October 26, 2017|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/10/leon-wieseltier-profile-1995|title=The Very Busy, Very Unproductive Life of Leon Wieseltier|magazine=Vanity Fair|accessdate=June 16, 2019}} He attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush, Columbia University, Oxford University, and Harvard University. He was a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows (1979–82).[http://www.nyulawglobal.com/GrussLectureFall2005_000.htm The Annual Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Lecture: Fall 2005: "Law and Patience: Unenthusiastic Reflections on Jewish Messianism"], New York University. Accessed November 15, 2007. "Educated at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, Columbia College, Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard University". {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714220641/http://www.nyulawglobal.com/GrussLectureFall2005_000.htm |date=July 14, 2011 }}

Career

During his tenure as literary editor of The New Republic, Wieseltier played a central role in editing its "back of the book" or literary, cultural, and arts pages. The magazine's owner, Marty Peretz, discovered Wieseltier, then working at Harvard's Society of Fellows, and installed him in charge of the section.

Wieseltier has published several fiction and nonfiction books. Kaddish, a National Book Award finalist in 2000, and a National Jewish Book Award winner in the Nonfiction category in 1998,{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/awards/national-jewish-book-awards/past-winners?category=30772|title=Past Winners|last=|first=|date=|website=Jewish Book Council|language=en|url-status=|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=January 24, 2020}} is a genre-blending meditation on the Jewish prayers of mourning. Against Identity is a collection of thoughts about the modern notion of identity.

Wieseltier also edited and introduced a volume of works by Lionel Trilling entitled The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent and wrote the foreword to Ann Weiss's The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a collection of personal photographs that serves as a paean to pre-Shoah innocence.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

Wieseltier's translations of the works of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai have appeared in The New Republic and The New Yorker.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

Wieseltier served on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and was an outspoken advocate of the

George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq and the Iraq War. "I am in no sense a neoconservative, as many of my neoconservative adversaries will attest," Wieseltier wrote in a May 2007 letter to Judge Reggie Walton, seeking leniency for his friend Scooter Libby.[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0605071libby23.html The Smoking Gun] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607140923/http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0605071libby23.html |date=June 7, 2007 }}

In 2013, he was the recipient of the Dan David Prize for being "a foremost writer and thinker who confronts and engages with the central issues of our times, setting the standard for serious cultural discussion in the United States".{{cite web |title=Laureates Announced 2013 |url=http://www.dandavidprize.org/media-events/press-releases/487-laureates-announced-2013 |accessdate=September 6, 2014 |publisher=Dan David Prize |date=2013}}

In January 2016, it was announced that Wieseltier would be joining Laurene Powell Jobs to form a new publication devoted to exploring the effects of technology on people's lives. But on October 24, 2017, Jobs withdrew funding for the journal after Wieseltier admitted to sexual harassment and inappropriate advances with several former female employees of The New Republic. {{Cite web|title = Leon Wieseltier, Steve Jobs' widow said starting new journal|url = http://www.timesofisrael.com/leon-wieseltier-steve-jobs-widow-said-starting-new-journal/|website = The Times of Israel| date=January 22, 2016 |access-date = January 25, 2016}}

In 2020, Wieseltier launched a quarterly journal called Liberties, which was described as being dedicated to "the rehabilitation of liberalism".{{cite news|url = https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/12/15/leon-wieseltiers-comeback-journal-is-in-bookstores-now/|title = Leon Wieseltier's Comeback Journal Is in Bookstores Now|magazine = Washingtonian|last = Beaujon|first = Andrew|date = December 15, 2020|accessdate = May 19, 2023}}

= Sexual harassment acknowledgment (2017)=

In the immediate aftermath of Harvey Weinstein allegations and the #MeToo movement, a list of "Shitty Media Men" that featured men in the media industry who were accused of sexual misconduct was widely shared on the internet. Wieseltier's name was on the list.

After it was revealed on October 24, 2017, that several former women employees of The New Republic had accused Wieseltier of sexual harassment and inappropriate advances, he admitted to "offenses against some of my colleagues in the past." In a statement he made after the allegations became public, Wieseltier said: “I am ashamed to know that I made [anyone]... feel demeaned and disrespected. I assure them that I will not waste this reckoning.”

According to The New York Times: "Several women... said they were humiliated when Mr. Wieseltier sloppily kissed them on the mouth, sometimes in front of other staff members. Others said he discussed his sex life, once describing the breasts of a former girlfriend in detail. Mr. Wieseltier made passes at female staffers, they said, and pressed them for details about their own sexual encounters. Mr. Wieseltier often commented on what women wore to the office... telling them that their dresses were not tight enough. One woman said he left a note on her desk thanking her for the miniskirt she wore to the office that day. She said she never wore a skirt to the office again".

Another woman who Wieseltier harassed, Sarah Wildman, a former assistant editor of the magazine, later wrote that she was fired for complaining: "In disclosing this incident to my superiors, the outcome was, in many ways, far worse than the act itself. It’s not exactly that I was disbelieved; it’s that in the end, I was dismissed," she wrote in Vox.Wildman, Sarah. [https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/11/9/16624588/new-republic-harassment "I was harassed at the New Republic. I spoke up. Nothing happened."]. Vox, November 9, 2017.

Wildman further wrote that the sexual harassment went hand in hand with gender discrimination at the magazine during Peretz's and Wieseltier's tenure: "The women knew we had a far shallower chance of rising up the masthead than our male counterparts; all of us hoped we’d be the exception. To do so, we entered into a game in which the rules were rigged against us, sometimes pushing us well past our point of comfort in order to remain in play."Wildman, Sarah. [https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/11/9/16624588/new-republic-harassment "I was harassed at the New Republic. I spoke up. Nothing happened."]. Vox, November 9, 2017.

In 2014, an investigation by outside counsel retained by The New Republic substantiated allegations Wieseltier had subjected an employee of the magazine’s office building to unwanted sexual advances and harassment. "We directed Mr. Wieseltier to immediately cease any communication with her, and I made sure he knew The New Republic had a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment of any kind," the magazine's then owner, Christopher Hughes, said.

On October 24, 2017, Laurene Powell Jobs withdrew funding for the journal Wieseltier had been working to establish after Wieseltier admitted to sexual harassment and inappropriate advances with several former female employees.{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/the-harvey-effect-reaches-leon-wieseltier/543897/|title=The 'Harvey Effect' Takes Down Leon Wieseltier's Magazine |first=Adrienne|last=LaFrance|authorlink=Adrienne LaFrance| work = The Atlantic|date=October 24, 2017}}{{cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.818980|title=Leon Wieseltier's New Magazine Scrapped After 'Past Inappropriate Workplace Conduct' Emerges|author1=The Forward| author2= Aiden Pink |date=October 25, 2017|publisher=|newspaper=Haaretz}}{{Subscription required}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/arts/leon-wieseltier-magazine-harassment.html|title=Leon Wieseltier Admits 'Offenses' Against Female Colleagues as New Magazine Is Killed|last=Schuessler|first=Jennifer|date=October 24, 2017|work=The New York Times|access-date=October 24, 2017|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

On October 27, 2017, Wieseltier was fired by The Atlantic.{{Cite web | title = Reckoning With a Powerful Man's Bad Behavior | last = Cottle | first = Michelle | work = The Atlantic | date = October 27, 2017 | access-date = November 2, 2017 | url = https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/leon-wieseltier-a-reckoning/544209/ | quote = Wieseltier was also a contributing editor at The Atlantic until [October 27, 2017], when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief, announced in a note to staffers that the magazine is severing its ties with him.}}

He was also fired by the Brookings Institution, where he had been the Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy.{{cite news |date=October 25, 2017| title=Brookings Institution suspends Leon Wieseltier without pay |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/10/25/brookings-institution-suspends-leon-wieseltier-without-pay |newspaper=The Washington Post|last=Wemple |first=Erik|authorlink= Erik Wemple| access-date=November 2, 2017| language=en-us |quote=Update 6:00 p.m. Oct. 25: Brookings has announced that Wieseltier is 'no longer employed' at the think tank.}}

Criticism

Wieseltier was a frequent target of the satirical monthly Spy magazine. It often derided his analyses of pop culture as comically pretentious and mocked him as "Leon Vee-ZEL-tee-AY" who "jealously guards his highbrow credentials while wearing a lowbrow heart on his sleeve".{{cite news |title=Wayward Intellectual Finds God |first=Sam |last=Tanenhaus | authorlink= Sam Tanenhaus|date=January 24, 1999 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/24/magazine/wayward-intellectual-finds-god.html |newspaper=The New York Times Magazine |accessdate=February 15, 2015}}

In reference to being called a "Jew-baiter" by Wieseltier, Andrew Sullivan has said, "Wieseltier is a connoisseur and cultivator of personal hatred"—referring to a dislike based on "tedious" causes that Wieseltier allegedly has held regarding him for a long time.{{cite news |first=Andrew| last= Sullivan|title='Jew-Baiting' |work=The Daily Dish |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/04/-jew-baiting/217753/ |publisher=The Atlantic |date=April 19, 2008 |accessdate=February 15, 2015}}

Wiesltier was the subject of a 2017 essay, "The Tzaddik of the Intellectuals" written by Joseph Epstein that appeared in The Weekly Standard (November 3, 2017) and was included in Gallimaufry, a collection of Epstein's essays published in 2020.{{Cite web |last=Epstein |first=Joseph |date=2017-11-03 |title=The Tzaddik of the Intellectuals - Washington Examiner |url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine/574094/the-tzaddik-of-the-intellectuals/ |access-date=2024-04-12 |language=en-US}}{{cite book |last1=Epstein |first1=Joseph | title=Gallimaufry |date=2020 |publisher=Axios Press |location=Edinburg, VA |isbn=9781604191288 |page=111}} See also Tzadik.

Personal life

Wieseltier and Mahnaz Ispahani married in 1985, and divorced in 1994. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated at their wedding in 1985.

After a long-term relationship with choreographer Twyla Tharp, he married his second wife, Jennifer Bradley, who worked on urban-development issues at the Brookings Institution.{{cite news |last1=Sela |first1=Maya |title=Leon Wieseltier: 'I am a human being before I am a Jew' |url=http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/.premium-1.529801 |work=Haaretz |date=June 14, 2013 |accessdate=October 16, 2014}} The Washington Post reported that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would also officiate at their October 2000 wedding.{{cite news |last1=Grove |first1=Lloyd |title=The Reliable Source |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/10/25/the-reliable-source/70e66fd6-4997-41f5-8009-79a81dc69cce/ |access-date=January 6, 2023 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 25, 2000}} As of 2020, the couple was in the midst of a divorce.{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Ash |title=Taking—and Making—Liberties |url=https://airmail.news/issues/2020-8-15/taking-and-making-liberties |accessdate=August 16, 2020 |work=Air Mail |date=August 15, 2020}}

Wieseltier is a fluent Hebrew speaker, and when interviewed in Israel, he said "I feel perfectly at home here."

In popular culture

Wieseltier appeared in one episode of the fifth season of The Sopranos, playing Stewart Silverman, a character whom Wieseltier described as "a derangingly materialistic co-religionist who dreams frantically of 'Wedding of the Week' and waits a whole year for some stupid car in which he can idle for endless hours in traffic east of Quogue every weekend of every summer, the vulgar Zegna-swaddled brother of a Goldman Sachs mandarin whose son's siman tov u'mazel tov is provided by a pulchritudinous and racially diverse bunch of shellfish-eating chicks in tight off-the-shoulder gowns".{{cite news |date=March 29, 2004 |title=Mob Experts on The Sopranos, Week 4 |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/tv_club/features/2004/mob_experts_on_the_sopranos_week_4/are_tony_and_melfi_having_a_love_affair.html |publisher=Slate |accessdate=February 15, 2015}}