Murray Polner (March 15, 1928 – May 30, 2019) was an American editor and author. He was the founding editor of Present Tense, 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.
The child of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Polner grew up in the Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn.[1][2] He graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School, City College of New York (1950), earned an M.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania (1976), and a Ph.D. from Union Institute & University in Russian history (1972).[1][2] He taught for 10 years in a high school in Brooklyn, worked as an adjunct professor at several area colleges in the New York area, and served as executive assistant to Harvey B. Scribner, the first chancellor of the New York City Public Schools.[1][2]
He served in the military in Japan during the Korean War.[1][2] He remained a vegetarian since his military service during the Korean War.[3]
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.[1][2]
Polner was the editor of the magazine Present Tense from the time of its founding in 1973 until it ceased publication in 1990.[4][2]
He was the book review editor of History News Network until 2017.[2][4]
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."[1]
