Launched in 1945, Commentary magazine became one of America's most celebrated periodicals. Under the editorship of Elliot E. Cohen, it developed into the premier postwar journal of Jewish affairs attracting a readership far wider than its Jewish community origin. This book is the first detailed and critical study of Commentary magazine during its formative years. Abrams traces the development of the key issues that have occupied its first fifty years: the construction of a new American Jewish identity, Judaism, the Holocaust, the State of Israel, and the Cold War. This account of the chief and most influential journal of Jewish thought, opinion, and culture in America will complete the picture of postwar American Jewish and general intellectual life. It is based upon a wide range of sources including archival and other material never before published in the context of Commentary magazine.