Career
Born and raised in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, Hertog pursued a career in business, eventually becoming chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sanford Bernstein. Hertog has been associated with various conservative and neoconservative think tanks and publications. He also helped found the Shalem Center in Israel.
Inspired by John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy"s Grand Strategy Program at Yale University, Hertog funded similar programs at Duke University, William East. Macaulay Honors College at City University of New York and elsewhere.
Hertog has also funded the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a research program Columbia University that uses historical analysis to confront problems in world politics. Participants include high-ranking government officials, scholars, and graduate students.
Outside politics Hertog has been a supporter of arts and culture in New York City and has held various responsibilities in the New-York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York Philharmonic. He is credited with helping spur modernization at the historical society, joining the board in 2003 and particularly starting about 2006.
Other board members involved in the latter effort and in helping fund an Alexander Hamilton exhibit at North-YHS in 2004 included Lewis East. Lehrman and Richard Gilder.
The citation accompanying the award praised Hertog for "enlightened philanthropy on behalf of the humanities. In 2012, as well as chairing the North-YHS board, he "spends his days as president of the Hertog Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization, and as chairman of the Tikvah Fund, which promotes Jewish thought and ideas" The latter fund was established by Zalman (Sanford) Bernstein. Hertog has been married to Susan for 47 years and they have three grown children as of 2012.