Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff
Born	Nathan Irving Hentoff (1925-06-10)June 10, 1925 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	January 7, 2017(2017-01-07) (aged 91) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	Northeastern University Harvard University Sorbonne University
Occupations	Columnist historian novelist music critic
Spouses	Miriam Sargent ​ ​ (m. 1950; div. 1950)​ Trudi Bernstein ​ ​ (m. 1954; div. 1959)​ Margot Goodman ​ (m. 1959)​
Children	4

Nathan Irving Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) was an American historian, novelist,

Hentoff was formerly a columnist for:

Hentoff co-wrote Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It (1955) with Nat Shapiro.^[3] The book includes interviews with jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Hentoff co-founded The Jazz Review in 1958,^[3][22] a magazine that he co-edited with Martin Williams until 1961.^[22] In 1960 he served as artists and repertoire (A&R) director for the short-lived jazz label Candid Records, which released albums by Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, and Max Roach.^[22][23]

Around the same time, Hentoff began freelance writing for Esquire, Playboy, Harper's, New York Herald Tribune, Commonweal, and The Reporter.^[3] From 1958 to 2009, he wrote weekly columns on education, civil liberties, politics, and capital punishment for The Village Voice.^[3] He also wrote for The New Yorker (1960–1986), The Washington Post (1984–2000), and The Washington Times.^[3] He worked with the Jazz Foundation of America to help American jazz and blues musicians in need.^{[citation needed]} He wrote many articles for The Wall Street Journal and The Village Voice to draw attention to the plight of America's pioneering jazz and blues musicians.^[24][25]

Hentoff also wrote many novels for young adults, including I'm Really Dragged But Nothing Gets Me Down (1968), This School is Driving Me Crazy (1976), Blues for Charlie Darwin (1982), and The Day They Came To Arrest The Book (1983).^[26] Writing about the latter for The Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg commented that "One of the useful — or depressing — things about reading Hentoff’s YA polemic, which was published all the way back in 1982, is how similar the novel’s conflicts are to our present debates."^[27]

Beginning in February 2008, Hentoff was a weekly contributing columnist at

Hentoff espoused generally liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, but in the 1980s, he began articulating more socially conservative positions especially in regard to medical ethics and reproductive rights. He was opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia, and the selective medical treatment of severely disabled infants.^[33] He believed that a consistent life ethic should be the viewpoint of a genuine civil libertarian, arguing that all human rights are at risk when the rights of one group of people are diminished, that human rights are interconnected, and that people deny others' human rights at their peril.^[33]

Anti-Semitism

Hentoff believed antisemitism was rampant.^[34]

Social and individual freedom

Hentoff was a

Hentoff defended the existence of the state of Israel. He criticized Israeli policies such as the absence of due process for Palestinians^[39] and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. His opposition to Israel's invasion of Lebanon led three rabbis symbolically to "excommunicate" him from Judaism.^[40] He commented, "I would have told them about my life as a heretic, a tradition I keep precisely because I am a Jew."^[40] He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[7][28]

War on terror

Hentoff criticized the

Hentoff married three times, first to Miriam Sargent in 1950; the marriage was childless and the couple divorced that same year.[55] His second wife was Trudi Bernstein, whom he married on September 2, 1954, and with whom he had two children, Miranda and Jessica.^[55] (Jessica Hentoff is the founder of Circus Harmony, a non-profit social circus and circus school in St. Louis, Missouri.^[56]) He divorced his second wife in August 1959.^[55] On August 15, 1959, he married his third wife, Margot Goodman, with whom he had two children: Nicholas and Thomas.^[55] The couple remained together until he died of natural causes at his Manhattan apartment on January 7, 2017, aged 91.^[7]

Books

Non-fiction

• Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men who Made it, with
  ISBN 978-0-486-21726-0 (1955)^[3]
• The Jazz Makers, with Nat Shapiro.
  ISBN 0-8371-7098-2 (1957)^[15]
• The Jazz Life.
  ISBN 0-306-80088-8 (1961)^[3][57]
• Peace Agitator: The Story of
  ISBN 0-9608096-0-0 (1963)^[3][11]
• The New Equality.
  ISBN 978-0-670-00185-9 (1964)^[3][11]
• ISBN 978-0-939266-43-2 (1967)^[11]
• A Doctor Among the Addicts: The Story of
  ISBN 978-0-528-81946-9 (1968)^[11]
• A Political Life: The Education of
  John V. Lindsay (1969)^[57]
• Journey into Jazz.
  ISBN 978-0-698-30206-8 (1971)^[57]
• Jazz Is.
  ISBN 978-0-7567-5045-9 (1976)^[15]
• Does Anybody Give a Damn?: Nat Hentoff on Education.
  ISBN 978-0-394-40933-7 (Random House; 1977)^[11]
• The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America.
  ISBN 978-0-385-29643-4 (1980)^[11]
• American Heroes: In and Out of School.
  ISBN 978-0-385-29565-9 (1987)^[58]
• ISBN 0-684-18944-5 (1988)^[11][57]
• Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other.
  ISBN 0-06-099510-6 (1993)^[3][11]
• Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music.
  ISBN 0-06-019047-7 (1995)^[11]
• Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American.
  ISBN 0-520-21981-3 (1999)^[3]
• The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance.
  ISBN 1-58322-621-4 (2004)^[59]
• American Music Is.
  ISBN 978-0-306-81351-1 (2004)^[60]

Novels

• Jazz Country.
  ISBN 978-0-440-94203-0 (1965)^[3]
• Call the Keeper.
  ISBN 978-0-670-20014-6 (1966)^[21]
• Onwards!
  ISBN 978-0-671-20000-8 (1968)^[61]
• I'm Really Dragged but Nothing Gets Me Down (1968)[62]
• This School Is Driving Me Crazy.
  ISBN 978-0-440-98702-4 (1976)^[3]
• Does This School Have Capital Punishment?
  ISBN 0-435-12329-7 (1982)^[3]
• Blues for Charlie Darwin.
  ISBN 978-0-68801-260-1 (1982)^[21]
• The Day They Came to Arrest the Book.
  ISBN 978-0-440-91814-1 (1983)^[3][11]
• The Man from Internal Affairs.
  ISBN 978-0-89296-141-2 (1985)^[11]

Memoirs

External videos
Booknotes interview with Hentoff on Speaking Freely, October 19, 1997, C-SPAN

• Boston Boy: Growing Up With Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions.
  ISBN 0-9679675-2-X (1986)^[3][11][57]
• Speaking Freely: A Memoir.
  ISBN 978-0-679-43647-8 (1997)^[3]

Compilations

• The Nat Hentoff Reader.
  ISBN 0-306-81084-0 (2001)^[63]

Edited volumes

• Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It (with Nat Shapiro).
  ISBN 978-0-486-21726-0 (1955)^[3]
• Black Anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism.
  ISBN 978-0-8052-0280-9 (1969)^[64]
• Jazz: New Perspectives on the History of Jazz by Twelve of the World's Foremost Jazz Critics and Scholars.
  ISBN 0-306-80002-0 (with Albert McCarthy) (1975)^[65]

References

1. ^ Hentoff, Nat (January 7, 2009). "Nat Hentoff's Last Column: The 50-Year Veteran Says Goodbye". Village Voice. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
2. ISBN 978-0-521-01693-3
   . Note: this quote is from the authors' introductory essay, not from the interviews.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa} McFadden, Robert D. (January 7, 2017). "Nat Hentoff, Journalist and Social Commentator, Dies at 91". The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
4. ^ Current Biography Yearbook. Vol. 47. H. W. Wilson Co. 1986. pp. 221–222. Nathan Irving Hentoff was born in Boston, Massachusetts on 10 June 1925, the first-born child of Simon Hentoff, a haberdasher, and Lena [Katzenberg] Hentoff.
5. ISBN 9780871964625
   . Nathan Irving Hentoff was born in Boston to Simon, a traveling salesman, and Lena (Katzenberg) Hentoff.
6. ^ ^{a b} Hentoff 2010, p. xi.
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Weil, Martin (January 8, 2017). "Nat Hentoff, journalist who wrote on jazz and civil liberties, dies at 91". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
8. ISBN 978-1-58988-258-4
   .
9. ^ "Ask the Globe". The Boston Globe. July 30, 1998.
10. ^ Hentoff 2010, p. xiv.
11. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} "Nat Hentoff". The Washington Post. 1998. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
12. ISBN 9780810869288
    .
13. ^
    ISBN 9781563089206
    .
14. ISBN 9781135947057
    .
15. ^ ^{a b c} Kreps, Daniel (January 8, 2017). "Nat Hentoff, Renowned Columnist and Jazz Critic, Dead at 91". Rolling Stone. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
16. ^ "Storyville". Music Museum of New England. May 29, 2018.
17. ^ "Billy Taylor and Charles Mingus at Storyville".
18. ^ "The Evolution of Jazz". americanarchive.org. Retrieved July 23, 2020.
19. ^ The New York Times, July 3, 1958, p. 49.
20. ^ Down Beat, February 8, 1952, p. 1.
21. ^ ^{a b c} "Nat Hentoff, columnist, critic and giant of jazz writing, dies aged 91". The Guardian. January 8, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
22. ^ ^{a b c} "Muere Nat Hentoff, histórico cronista del jazz". El Pais. January 8, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
23. ISBN 978-1-4696-3059-5
    .
24. ^ Hentoff, Nat (January 15, 2009). "How Jazz Helped Hasten the Civil-Rights Movement". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
25. ^ Hentoff, Nat (November 14, 2006). "Keeping Jazz Musicians Alive". Archived from the original on October 5, 2009.
26. ^ "Nat Hentoff". Biblio. Retrieved September 4, 2023.
27. ^ Rosenberg, Alyssa (January 9, 2017). "Nat Hentoff's young adult novel was a guide to arguing about art and politics". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 4, 2023.
28. ^ ^{a b c} Haberman, Clyde (January 8, 2009). "Having Writ for 50 Years, Hentoff Moves On From The Voice". The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
29. ^ "Nat Hentoff Joins the Cato Institute". Cato.org. February 4, 2009. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
30. ^ ^{a b c} Whitehead, John W. (December 11, 2009). "America Under Barack Obama: An Interview with Nat Hentoff". The Rutherford Institute. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
31. ^ Scheib, Ronnie (July 11, 2014). "Film Review: 'The Pleasures of Being Out of Step'". Variety. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
32. ^ De Coster, Ramzi (November 21, 2013). "'A World Not Ours' and 'The Pleasures of Being Out of Step' Take Home Grand Jury Prizes at DOC NYC". IndieWire. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
33. ^ ^{a b} "Nat Hentoff on Abortion". Swissnet.ai.mit.edu. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
34. ^ "As I've said before, if a loudspeaker goes off and a voice says, 'All Jews gather in Times Square,' it could never surprise me." Amy Wilentz, in "How the War Came Home", New York, February 2012, quoting from a Nat Hentoff column in The Village Voice.
35. ^ ^{a b} "Nat Hentoff, Memory Eternal". National Review. January 7, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
36. ^ Hentoff, Nat (September 20, 1999). "ACLU better clean up its act". Jewishworldreview.com. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
37. ^ Keene, David (January 9, 2017). "A taste for authentic liberalism". The Washington Times. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
38. ^ ^{a b} Hentoff, Nat (February 4, 2002). "Vietnam's state terrorism". Jewish World Review.
39. ^ Hentoff, Nat (June 26, 1999). "Due Process in Israel". The Washington Post.
40. ^ ^{a b} Italie, Hillel (January 8, 2017). "Columnist Nat Hentoff, a secular rabbi excommunicated for his activism, dies at 91". The Times of Israel.
41. ^ "Nat Hentoff Interview" (PDF). www.publicrecordmedia.org.
42. ^ Nat Hentoff (November 12, 2008). "Caged Citizen Will Test President Obama". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on October 14, 2010. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
43. ^ Nat Hentoff (December 3, 2008). "Obama's First 100 Days". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
44. ^ Nat Hentoff (January 12, 2010). "George W. Obama". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on March 5, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
45. ^ "List of Guggenheim Fellows". Guggenheim Fellowship. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
46. ^ ^{a b c} "Nat Hentoff". Cato Institute.
47. ^ Nat Hentoff (January 7, 2009). ""Nat Hentoff's Last Column", Village Voice, January 6, 2009". Archived from the original on February 14, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
48. ^ "Awards & Recognition". Boston Latin School.
49. ^ Hentoff 2010, p. 194.
50. ^ Pattison, Mark (January 12, 2017). "Nat Hentoff was self-described pro-life Jewish atheist". Catholic Herald. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
51. ^ Nat Hentoff, Nat (August 24, 1985), "The Soul Music of the Synagogue", The Wall Street Journal.
52. ^ Joyce, Robert W. (Fall 1999). "PLLDF Century Dinner" (PDF). The Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund Newsletter. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016.
53. ^ Hentoff, Nat, John Cardinal O'Connor: at the Storm Center of a Changing American Catholic Church, p. 7 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988)
54. ^ "Nat Hentoff," in Murray Polner, American Jewish Biographies (New York: Facts on File, Inc., Lakeville Press, 1982), pp. 168–9.
55. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8103-7384-6
    .
56. ^ King, Chris (March 13, 2017). "Nat Hentoff's daughter pays him a circus tribute in Circus Harmoney fundraiser". Stlmag.com. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
57. ^ ^{a b c d e} Marquand, Bryan (January 8, 2017). "Nat Hentoff, a jazz critic, free speech advocate, and 'Boston Boy' memoirist, dies at 91". Boston Globe. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
58. ISBN 978-0-385-29565-9
    .
59. ISBN 978-1-58322-658-2
    .
60. ISBN 978-0-306-81351-1
    .
61. ^ Hentoff, Nat (1968). Onwards!: a novel. Simon and Schuster.
62. ^ Hentoff, Nat (1968). I'm really dragged but nothing gets me down. Simon & Schuster.
63. ISBN 978-0-306-81084-8
    .
64. ^ Baldwin, James; Nat, Hentoff (1969). Black anti-Semitism and Jewish racism (reprint ed.). R. W. Baron.
65. ISBN 978-0-306-80002-3
    .

Bibliography

• Hentoff, Nat (2010). At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene. University of California Press.
  ISBN 9780520945883
  .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Nat Hentoff.

• Appearances on C-SPAN