Nat Hentoff

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Photo by Tom Pich

Nat Hentoff (born June 10, 1925) is an American historian, jazz critic, and columnist for the Village Voice, Legal Times, Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher, Free Inquiry and Jewish World Review.

Hentoff was educated at Boston Latin School, Northeastern University, and Harvard University. Hentoff is known as a civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty and pro-life advocate, but he is often critical of the ideological left. He also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Hentoff was named as one of six 2004 NEA Jazz Masters, the first non-musician to win this award.

In recent years, Nat Hentoff has become a vocal critic of the American Civil Liberties Union (an organization he once supported) for its advocacy of government-enforced campus and workplace speech codes[1] and its support of affirmative action, which he considers to be state-sponsored racial and ethnic discrimination. He now serves on the board of advisors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, another civil liberties group. Hentoff's book, Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee, outlines his views on free speech and excoriates those who he feels favor censorship in any form.

Hentoff is critical of Bush Administration policies such as the Patriot Act and other civil liberties implications of the recent push for "homeland security." He was also strongly critical of Clinton Administration policies such as the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

In February 2003, Hentoff signed a letter circulated by Social Democrats, USA advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq on human rights grounds, citing reports detailing Hussein's disregard for fundamental liberties. In March and April of that year Hussein was deposed by a US-led invasion, launching the ongoing Iraq war. In summer 2003, Hentoff wrote a column for the Washington Times in which he supported Tony Blair's humanitarian justifications for the war. He also criticized the Democratic Party for casting doubt on President Bush's pre-war assertions about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in an election year.

Despite what are generally considered liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, Hentoff developed views opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia and the selective medical treatment of severely disabled infants in the 1980s.[2] Hentoff declared that his views had nothing to do with his Jewish faith(He has described himeself as a 'Jewish atheist'). Hentoff said that shortly after he "came out" as an opponent of abortion, several of his colleagues at The Village Voice stopped speaking to him. In October 2005, Hentoff was honored by the Human Life Foundation at the Third Annual Great Defender of Life dinner.

Books

• Does Anybody Give a Damn?: Nat Hentoff on Education Random House; (1977)
• Our Children Are Dying
• A Doctor Among Addicts
• Peace Agitator: The Story of A. J Muste ISBN 0-9608096-0-0
• The New Equality
• The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America
• The Day They Came to Arrest the Book ISBN 0-440-91814-6
• The Man from Internal Affairs
• Boston Boy: Growing Up With Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions ISBN 0-9679675-2-X
• John Cardinal O'Connor: At the Storm Center of a Changing American Catholic Church
• Free Speech for Me — But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other ISBN 0-06-099510-6
• Listen to the Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music
• Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American ISBN 0-520-21981-3
• The Nat Hentoff Reader ISBN 0-306-81084-0
• The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance ISBN 1-58322-621-4
• The Jazz Life ISBN 0-306-80088-8
• Does This School Have Capital Punishment?
• I'm Really Dragged But Nothing Gets Me Down
• Jazz Country

*''This School is Driving Me Crazy''

Quote

• "I'm a Jewish atheist civil-libertarian pro-lifer."

External links

• Columns at JewishWorldReview.com
• Columns on abortion
• 1986 RealAudio interview with Nat Hentoff by Don Swaim
• Nat Hentoff at Discourse DB