MARCH 4 • 2021 | 35
H
istorian Nancy Sinkoff
read From That
Place and Time: A
Memoir, 1938-1947 by Lucy
S. Dawidowicz and decided
there was much
more to tell about
this 20th-century
author, a Jewish
and political pub-
lic intellectual.
Approval of
Sinkoff’s subse-
quent manuscript came from
the Wayne State University
Press, which last year pub-
lished From Left to Right, Lucy
S. Dawidowicz, the New York
Intellectuals, and the Politics of
Jewish History.
The book was named a
Natan Notable Book and
received a National Jewish
Book Award through the
Jewish Book Council.
“The Dawidowicz memoir
basically covers her young
adulthood,
” explained Sinkoff,
professor of Jewish studies and
history at Rutgers University
in New Jersey. “She lived until
1990, but it seems nobody
knew that much about her
except people interested in the
Holocaust.
“Her major achievement was
bringing the culture and civili-
zation of the Eastern European
Jewish [population] and its
merciless destruction to the
English-reading public.
”
While Sinkoff delves into
the Dawidowicz book The War
Against the Jews 1933-1945,
written in 1975 to tell about
the Jewish response in keeping
ethnic communal life together
in the context of World War
II, politics becomes the main
focus of the professor’s recent
text.
“Dawidowicz was a youthful
communist, then patriotic FDR
Democrat and ended her life
as an independent neo-con-
servative urging the American
Jewish community to vote for
Ronald Reagan,
” said Sinkoff,
who did some of her research
and writing during a semes-
ter as a fellow at the Frankel
Center for Judaic Studies at the
University of Michigan.
Dawidowicz, whose values
had her working with the
American Jewish Committee
and helping displaced persons,
is described as a public speaker
who expressed a belief that the
greatest threat to Jews in her
later years was the antisem-
itism she saw coming out of
the Soviet Union and radical
anti-Zionism.
“My academic interests
have been connected to
Eastern European Jewish
life,
” said Sinkoff, who also
has written Out of the Shtetl:
Making Jews Modern in the
Polish Borderlands. “Lucy S.
Dawidowicz was witness to it.
“Wayne State gave me free-
dom to make the book I want-
ed. I’ve included an appendix of
31 previously unpublished let-
ters between Dawidowicz and
various intellectuals, including
Albert Einstein and novelist
Allen Hoffman.
”
Nancy
Sinkoff
New WSU Press book is
a look back at Holocaust
historian Lucy Dawidowicz.
A Life Story
with Politics
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
PHOTO CREDIT JERRY ZOLYNSKY
The JN and the Jewish Community Center’s JFamily
will once again shine the public spotlight on teens
in our community with Rising Stars: Teens Making a
Dif
erence. 18 remarkable Jewish teens in the Metro
Detroit area will be selected and featured in the April
29, 2021, issue of the Jewish News and recognized
on the JN and JCC’s JFamily social media pages.
Nominees must live in Michigan, identify as Jewish
and be students in grades 9-12; they can be self-
nominated or may be nominated by others today
through March 17.
Nominees should be recognized for impact,
contribution and/or achievement in areas
including (but not limited) to:
• Tikkun olam, volunteerism, social action,
advocacy, philanthropy
• Academics/education
• Athletics
• Music & arts
• Business & entrepreneurship
• Overcoming obstacles and challenges
• Jewish growth and learning
• Leadership
SEEKING
TERRIFIC TEENS!
To nominate yourself or a teen you know, go to
thejewishnews.com and click on the Rising Stars button
or to jfamily.jccdet.org/risingstars. The deadline is March 17.