Murray Polner

Murray Polner (March 15, 1928 – May 30, 2019) was an American editor and author. He was the founding editor of Present Tense, a liberal current affairs magazine published by the American Jewish Committee, a job he held for the entire two decades that the magazine was published. He was an anti-Vietnam War activist and a committed pacifist.

Background and education The child of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Polner grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

He moved to Great Neck, New York, in 1961 with his wife Louise (Greenwald) Polner, and lived there for the rest of his life. The Polners had three children, Beth Polner Abrahams, Robert Polner and Alex Polner.

He was the book review editor of History News Network until 2017.

Political views Polner was a pacifist, although he allowed that the Holocaust was a difficult case, "It's the hardest question of all," he said, "and I'm not sure there's an answer."

Books No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran (1970) When Can I Come Home? a Debate on Amnesty for Exiles, Antiwar Prisoners, and Others (1972) Rabbi: The American Experience, (1977). Branch Rickey: A Biography, (1982) Disarmed and Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, the militant anti-war priests, (2007). with co-author Jim O'Grady We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now, (2008) with Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Edited books The Challenge of Shalom: The Jewish Tradition of Peace & Justice, (1994) co-edited with Naomi Goodman Peace, Justice, and Jews: Reclaiming Our Tradition, (2007) co-edited with Stefan Merken