Murray Kempton, Acerbic Liberal of Faith

It was the Baltimore-born reporter and essayist Murray Kempton (1917–1997) who first used the term “the Family” to describe the close-knit group of mostly Jewish writers known today as the New York intellectuals. Like many of that group, some of whom would be the founders of neoconservatism, Kempton embraced liberalism after a brief flirtation with Communism. (A quick search reveals that he wrote at least three articles for Commentary, including a review of a book by William F. Buckley, and his books were reviewed in the same publication.) Also like some of those thinkers, he, in Marc Landy’s evaluation, rejected utopianism and tempered his liberalism with a conservative disposition. Landy ties that disposition to Kempton’s faith: