Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss ( BARR-ee WYSS; born March 25, 1984) is an American political commentator who is the editor-in-chief of CBS News. She was an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017 and an op-ed staff editor and writer on culture and politics at The New York Times from 2017 to 2020. Weiss founded the media company The Free Press (formerly Common Sense) and hosts the podcast Honestly.

Weiss was born on March 25, 1984, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Lou and Amy Weiss, former owners of Weisshouse, a Pittsburgh company founded in 1943 that sells flooring, furniture, and kitchens; they own flooring company Weisslines. She grew up in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood and graduated from Pittsburgh's Community Day School and Shady Side Academy. The eldest of four sisters, she attended the Tree of Life Synagogue and had her bat mitzvah ceremony there. After high school, Weiss went to Israel on a Nativ gap year program, helping build a medical clinic for Bedouins in the Negev desert and studying at a feminist yeshiva and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Weiss attended Columbia University, majoring in history and graduating in 2007. She founded the Columbia Coalition for Sudan in response to the War in Darfur. From 2005 to 2007 Weiss was the founding editor of The Current, a magazine at Columbia for politics, culture, and Jewish affairs. After graduating, she was a Wall Street Journal Bartley Fellow in 2007 and a Dorot Fellow from 2007 to 2008 in Jerusalem.