Chairman
Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) was co-founder of Pro Musica Hebraica. As president of the Krauthammer Foundation and a founding board member of Washington’s Shoresh Hebrew High School, he was a life-long supporter of Jewish education and culture.
Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics), and Harvard University (M.D. 1975). He served as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, before coming to Washington to direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration. He began contributing articles to The New Republic, then joined the magazine as a writer and editor in 1981. His New Republic writings won the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, the highest award in magazine journalism.
In 1985, he began writing a syndicated column for The Washington Post which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and was published weekly in over 240 newspapers worldwide. He was also a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and was a weekly panelist on Inside Washington and was a nightly commentator on FOX News’ Special Report with Bret Baier. From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President’s Council on Bioethics.
Raised in a traditional Jewish household with intensive study of Hebrew and Talmud, Krauthammer was honored by a myriad of Jewish organizations from the Anti-Defamation League to the Israeli Technion for his lifelong devotion to Jewish causes and Jewish culture. Over the last several years of his life, he worked to assist his wife Robyn in creating Pro Musica Hebraica and realizing its dream of bringing lost and neglected Jewish classical music to the concert halls of the world.