David Joel Horowitz was born January 10, 1939 to Phil and Blanche Horowitz in Queens, New York. David was raised in Queens along with his sister Ruth. Phil and Blanche were high school teachers and members of the American Communist Party. Their lives included secret meetings, secret identities, and a secret revolutionary plan. As such, they steeped David in Marxist philosophy and world affairs. We sometimes joked that he was the “Tiger Woods of Communism” as he was raised to be the Party’s next great player. He thought that was funny, because like Tiger he never had a choice in the matter. The impact of his upbringing was profound, but David’s life would prove to be shaped by his own self-described irrational desire to “save the world.” While this impulse began as a highly abstract concept, David would spend a lifetime refining it, sharpening it, completely revising it and ultimately making it his life’s mission.
David attended Bryant High School in Queens, NY. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in 1959, majoring in English. He then earned a master’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1959, he instantly fell in love with and married Elissa Krauthamer. They would have four children: Jonathan Daniel; Sarah Rose; myself, Benjamin Abraham; and Anne Deborah. In 1962, at 23 years old, David wrote and published his first book, Student, which detailed the political activities of students on the UC Berkeley campus. While at Berkeley, David became frustrated with his Shakespeare professor, so he wrote his own lecture series which he delivered and which was widely attended by students all across the campus. He eventually published the series in his second book: Shakespeare: An Existential View. This superhuman confidence and ability to back it up would become thematic throughout David’s life.
Later David and Elissa moved to London, England where David studied under Ralph Miliband and became close friends with Isaac Deutscher. Later David would write Deutscher’s biography.
Also while in London, in 1965 David wrote The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War, which became the book that made him a force on the New Left.
In 1968, David and Elissa moved the family back to the United States and purchased a home in Berkeley, California where they would raise their four children.
In his continued mission to save the world, in 1968 David became co-editor of the New Left magazine Ramparts. While at Ramparts, David developed a close friendship with Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party. As part of their work together, David helped raise money for, and assisted the Panthers with, the running of a school for poor children in Oakland. He later recommended that Newton hire his friend Betty Van Patter as bookkeeper; she was then working for Ramparts. In December 1974, Van Patter’s body was found floating in San Francisco Harbor; she had been murdered by the Panthers for knowing too much. The murder forced David to confront a truth that he had long suspected. It made clear to him that the pursuit of a Marxist utopia was a false and unachievable goal. Diabolically, the goal created a religion. The religion then cloaked the movement’s leaders with an invincible moral standing enabling them to commit atrocities with impunity for their own gain. He was horrified that he had been part of it and it caused him to rethink his entire life.
The decision was not easy. His family, friends, and career were all deeply tied to “the movement.” If he were to make this change, he would essentially need to start from scratch. So, he stayed away from politics for a while and changed to a neutral career. He became a biographer and journalist. It was a hugely risky move to change careers at 34 years old with a family of 6 in tow.
In a testament to David’s supreme confidence, indomitable will and massive talent, he was an instant success. His first biography The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty – written with his best friend and long-time colleague Peter Collier – was a blockbuster bestseller. Their next biography The Kennedys: An American Drama was an even bigger success, becoming a number one New York Times bestseller.
All the while, David kept an eye on and a hand in politics. While he needed a break to sort out his life, nothing in life would deter him from his mission. In 1981, San Francisco Chronicle writer Randy Shilts tipped David and Peter to a potential epidemic known as AIDS, which was rapidly spreading through the bathhouses in San Francisco. Shilts was concerned that the leaders in the Gay Community were intimidating the medical establishment into covering up the way it was transmitted and therefore keeping the bathhouses open, which would cause it to spread out of control. Randy was too terrified to write about it himself as he did not want to be attacked by the community. David, never one to fear anything, took on the story. In 1981, he and Peter published Whitewash: Gay Leaders in California Have Obscured Vital Information About How the AIDS Disease Spreads.
The aggressive reaction to the story (references to the article still call David a “homophobe”) reinforced David’s suspicions. If leaders on the Left were willing to sacrifice millions of gay lives to preserve their power and orthodoxy, what wouldn’t they do? The article, the experience, and the ocean of death that followed were the final straw in David’s conversion from his Marxist roots to a leading thinker on the Right. He formalized his position on March 17, 1985 when he and Peter published “Lefties for Reagan” in The Washington Post. David departed the Left for good.
The change would cost him nearly everything – all of his friends, coverage in the New York Times Book Review (essential for authors at the time), and countless lost earnings. He would have to start all over. But if the world needed saving from his former comrades on the Left, that’s exactly what he would do. Later he would note that the Right never excommunicated apostates the way he had been abandoned by the Left.
He often complained that he had “the rescue gene.” For David, this meant nothing animated him more than someone in need of help. He would instantly leap into action, making every phone call, raising every dollar, and doing anything in his power to save that person. The realization that he had been party to the destructive force activated his rescue gene and infused him with an energy that would produce dozens of books, countless public appearances, and nearly nonstop work for the next four decades.
In 1996, he captured this saga in his autobiography Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey in which he retraced his life and political journey.
1998 proved to be a seminal year for David when he met his angel April Mullvain, whom he would marry and who, along with her son John Jay, would watch over him until his passing.
In 1988, he also founded The Center for the Study of Popular Culture, later to become the Horowitz Freedom Center, where he recruited an inspired group of new young intellectuals to join his cause. The name “Freedom Center” meant much more than most ever understood. While David became known for his change in views, in a sense he never changed at all. His personal style represented the place and community from which he came. Even when he wore a suit, he looked like a radical forced into it due to a court date or a wedding. More importantly, his mission to save the world centered around freedom. When David went to rescue people, it was always from oppression imposed by some person or group. Early on, he had been trained to think the rich capitalists were the oppressors. His political change came from the realization that his side was doing the oppressing. Protected by the guise of being “for the people,” the Panthers took Betty’s life. The progressives left millions to die of AIDS so they could preserve their leadership positions. His former friends on the Left brutally excommunicated him from all their social relationships to reign power over him. It became clear that to fight for freedom, he had to be on the Right and so the Freedom Center was born.
From the Freedom Center, he published thousands of high-impact articles and books. He understood the systematic implications of seemingly benign cultural changes and used that knowledge to predict much of the future. Notably, he precisely forecast the intense campus antisemitism of 2024 in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, published in 2006.
In 2007, David was crushed by the passing of his beloved daughter Sarah Rose who, more than any of his other children, inherited his indomitable spirit and passion for politics. She had finally succumbed to long-time chronic degeneration from her genetic condition Turner’s Syndrome. He captured the experience in his most intimate, and perhaps his best, book A Cracking of the Heart in 2009.
By the 20-teens, David had long been frustrated by what he referred to as the “soft, gentlemanly” tactics of the Republican Party. He lamented that the Republicans were bringing a nerf gun to a nuclear war. He intimately knew the Left’s tactics and desperately wanted his party to match them. His wish was granted when a new kind of candidate, Donald J. Trump, won the Republican nomination. David responded instantly with the best articulation of the Trump strategy in Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America. Later, in 2024, I met President Trump and mentioned David. President Trump’s face lit up and he insisted that I get David on the phone immediately. Hospitalized and weak, David was still delighted to speak with the President and know that his message was heard and heeded.
In 2024, David published America Betrayed: How a Christian Monk Created America & Why the Left Is Determined to Destroy Her. In it, he carefully explained how the Catholic Church –through the indulgences – had removed the freedom inherent in being accountable to God and replaced them with the oppression of being accountable to the church. He then explained how that same idea had come back into vogue in the U.S. Right up until the final moments, David fought for freedom.
In the end, David helped countless people and expended every fiber of his being pushing society towards freedom. He may not have saved the world, but he most certainly made it a better place – especially for us. He was our superhero and we will love him forever.
So saddened to hear of this great man’s passing. Yes, a truly great man. I had the honor of traveling with him and Victor Davis Hanson to Florence in 2004 to celebrate Michelangelo’s David’s 500th birthday and rededication after restoration. Not only was David a great scholar and writer, he was a pleasure to be around: kind and thoughtful. President Reagan passed away while we were in Italy, and David eulogized him over lunch that day, a very memorable day. My condolences to his much beloved family. May his memory be for a blessing.
I feel like I’ve lost a dear friend, or a close relative. Tearfully so. God rest his soul.
What a loss for the world. Never met him, but I feel like I know him, and I’m going to miss him. So lucky to have discovered him early. God bless him and his family.
RIP David, a true American Patriot.
I met your father back in the 90’s at speaking engagement in Marin CA. I read his book Radical Son too. So sorry for your loss. Your father was a great man that won’t be forgotten.
Thank you, Ben for that wonderful tribute to your father, a truly remarkable man.
What a great American. I earned my Bachelors at UC Berkeley in the mid-90s and can entirely understand his transformative life. Godspeed. David Horowitz, ז”ל
I about his article on AIDS. I’d like to read that. Praying for the family.
I saw your father on some cable program debating a university professor or maybe he was a university president. Your father was an excellent debater and he mopped the floor with that guy. And I read several of your father’s books, including “Second Thoughts”. I believe he wrote that with Mr. Collier.
So sad to see him go. And he was a superhero.. Take care and God Bless you and your family.
What a remarkable man and life. I was blessed to have met him once in KC, MO shortly after 9-11. He and Peter’s book, ‘Destructive Generation’ changed the way I saw the world and history forever. Our condolences and gratitude for you, his family and friends.
He married April Mullvain. When did Elissa die or they get divorced?
Divorce. In his autobiography, Radical Son, Horowitz writes about it—if you’re actually interested
I am. Thanks for telling me.
“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out”
Those words will be heard for years and will be his legacy.
Condolences.
I heard Mr. Horowitz speak in Atlanta in the spring of 1992. Quoting him as best as I can remember, he said “Do you want AIDS awareness? I’ll give you AIDS awareness. Let’s get everybody tested.” It was pure and simple genius. I had a high regard for him from that moment.
A fascinating and motivating person. He inspired many of us who found the Left increasingly hostile to Jews, that we can move in a different political direction. What a full life. Alav hashalom, “may peace be upon him.”
Thank you for this beautiful tribute to your father. He was a giant.
One of the things that touched me the most about your father was his publishing your sister’s Sarah writings after her death, including the photo of her campaigning for Obama. It was clear he loved her and was so proud of her, even if they disagreed about politics.
That message is so needed during these fractured, combative times — and means all the more coming from someone as brilliant and justifiably committed to his views as your father was.
May his memory be a blessing.
David was a very special friend and mentor, and I was privileged to work with him and for him for many years. He taught me so much; for his brilliance and talent, I am eternally grateful. It is rare that such a man walks this earth, and I was touched by his heart and soul during the many years we worked to promote his books, articles and fight for freedom. I always thought of him as the Freedom Man! God bless David in Heaven for taking risks that ultimately led to the freedom of so many. He may no longer have an earthly body, but his soul will resonate for all eternity. RIP, my friend. You have left quite a void.
Condolences to your family. In my youth I was a liberal. Never a commie. Then of course I grew up. President Trump was the first Republican I voted for. Then I never voted party only the man or woman.
If President Trump was a democrat I would have voted for him.
President Kennedy was a conservative compared to some ‘nerf gun’ republicans.
Although in my 7th decade I don’t recall hearing of David Horowitz until after October 7, 2023 and parsing truth in news I somehow came across FPM, hence David Horowitz.
A retired successful script writer creator and producer for Tv and movies told me a year ago: “Because of the Diaspora, Jews have lost their identity and keep voting for the wrong person” – That was a lightning bolt of truth clearing up a lot of questions I had about my people. One was were so many educated intellectual Jews commies back in the day and today? The idea of a Hebrew being a communist is against all G-D put in us.
I am personally grateful to David Horowitz.
My mother’s family escaped from Soviet-occupied Latvia when my grandfather learned his name was on the list to be disappeared to Siberia for his comments criticizing the communist leadership. This was after enduring the Nazi occupation.
My mother brought with her to America a gut understanding of totalitarianism in all its forms, and a love for freedom.
“Radical Son” was one of the few books she gifted me, saying “This guy really gets it”.
What a blessing he was to us all.
Ben, my condolences for the loss of your beloved dad. He was one of my earliest teachers and heroes. His book “Radical Son” opened up my eyes and was the beginning of my ‘education’. I was lucky enough to meet him when he spoke at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference at the Ritz Carlton in Florida in 2006. He will be missed by many.
That is a lovely loving tribute to your father Ben. And, as I know, it is a strange new world without a father in it.
I hope that your father now sleeps safe in “the everlasting arms”, safe in God’s memory, every hair of his head numbered, and that he has the most wonderful awakening ahead of him, when the time comes for the resurrection.
I hope to see my parents again then too. But God will not wake the dead until the whole earth is at peace under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government for whose coming Jesus taught us to pray.
It will be such a joyful awakening when it comes.
Ben,
May the memory of your father’s life, courage, and commitment to the Truth be a blessing. As a witness to the fraud of totalitarian ideology, from Stalinism to the contemporary woke Left, your father chose, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, “to live not by lies.”
The great man and personal idol of mine is gone.
Very sad. May his memory be a blessing.
My dad was a Marine sergeant and, shall we say, kind of very anti-Communist. Me, being a child of the 60’s, thought he was kind of full of it. As I grew older, I realized that my dad was right about a lot of things. Your father and his writings confirmed to me what my father had been telling me about the left. I don’t know if my dad knew of your father and his work, but, if he had, he would have appreciated him very much. The death of your father is a great loss to this country, but, it would have been a much greater loss if he hadn’t been what he was. Thank you for the wonderful article about your dad. My condolences to you and your family.
David was a gentle Giant in so many ways. His giving of himself to help others was unprecedented everywhere he went. Our Family became good friends during the late 1980’s and through mid 2000’s until he moved back east from Mailbu, CA. We enjoyed promoting his speaking engagements from Newport Beach to Los Angeles with our resources of the Orange County Republican platforms. He will be missed in numerous ways, but to us he will be missed as a friend and confident who we loved dearly. Please advise us if possible where we can attend his services and celebrate his wonderful life.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kel Garrett & Family
Forever remembered;
Never forgotten!
Long live his enduring legacy!
I was watching TV in the ’90’s and saw David speaking, though I didn’t know who he was at the time.. He made total sense and it totally transformed my thinking. I eventually joined the David Horowitz Freedom Center Board of Directors. I got to know David and countless heroes of the right that he showcased at his Restoration Weekends. He was a true fighter. He said the DHFC was not a think tank, but a battle tank. RIP, David.
Sorry about your dad, brother. He was old though, so that should be some consolation. I never met the guy but I liked him.
Please accept my condolences on your loss. America has lost a true patriot.
The greatest compliment a good man & great activist of the RIGHT side like David Horowitz could have is his son from a marriage that didn’t work out as a life-time bond, eulogize him so well! We will miss David Horowitz in many ways not just his vote! Great, that Pres. Trump would call him up to honor him as he was making his transition to the spiritual world from this mortal world! I have no doubt that David Horowitz is getting his greatest reward as he took responsibility for everyone stating with Betty Van Patter, his friend whom he introduced to her leftist killers & then followed his responsibility to the truth of its ultimate conclusion in coming to the RIGHT side! All of those who followed David Horowitz’s example will miss HIM not just his vote! I encourage his son, here to continue sharing the talent his father left him for communication & carry on when he can to communicate David Horowitz’s spirit as it wasn’t just his deceased sister who could write, etc as this memorial is very well-written & interesting as well as a compliment to his father’s talent passed on to him! Deepest condolences & blessings or as David Horowitz would understand, Baruch Ha-Shem!
Your father WAS a super hero. And thank God we had him in my lifetime and during this most fragile of times for America. May he rest in eternal peace.
Ben, my very sincere condolences to you and the family. I’m a few years older than your father and I observed him and was annoyed by his thinking when he was as a deluded Marxist and felt sorry for him during that phase of his life. I admired him greatly during the second.
I was born in the southwest in the heart of what is called Comancheria, the area controlled by Comanches for 400 years. There’s a Western code there, a wholly American code now dead in the most of the East, that served as a barrier to ideologies like Marxism.
A great writer and thinker has left us. May his memory be a blessing.
May his memory be a blessing and may G D bless your family! A true giant of a man.
“Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out” —David Horowitz. Best quote which I use regularly.
Your father was a man of true bearing. He charted an unwavering course as the currents swirled and changed direction around him. Z’l.
David had a supreme effect on my leaving of the Left. He continued to inspire me with his perceptive intelligence and indefatigable fight for truth and freedom. I did not know he had been dealing with cancer but he was very much in my mind the day before I learned that he had passed. Thank you, David, for the gifts you shared with so many of us who followed you.
May he rest in peace.
From a fellow Democratic Party voter, turned Conservative