Every boy needs a Jewish mother. Midge Decter, who died last week at age 94, was mine.

Though I didn’t meet Miss Decter until I was in my early 30s, I’d long admired her. My impression was that she was tough and smart. She saw the direction the Left was intent on taking the country and she dissented. Decter did intellectual battle with socialists, feminists, gay liberationists, anti-anti-communists, and others in the vanguard, standing her ground.