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31 previously unpublished let-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.

