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From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History
From Left to Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History is the first comprehensive biography of Dawidowicz (1915–1990), a pioneer historian in the field that is now called Holocaust studies. Dawidowicz was a household name in the postwar years, not only because of her scholarship but also due to her political views. Dawidowicz, like many other New York intellectuals, was a youthful communist, became an FDR democrat midcentury, and later championed neoconservatism. Nancy Sinkoff argues that Dawidowicz’s rightward shift emerged out of living in prewar Poland, watching the Holocaust unfold from New York City, and working with displaced persons in postwar Germany. Based on over forty-five archival collections, From Left to Right chronicles Dawidowicz’s life as a window into the major events and issues of twentieth-century Jewish life.
From Left to Right is structured in four parts. Part 1 tells the story of Dawidowicz’s childhood, adolescence, and college years when she was an immigrant daughter living in New York City. Part 2 narrates Dawidowicz’s formative European years in Poland, New York City (when she was enclosed in the European-like world of the New York YIVO), and Germany. Part 3 tells how Dawidowicz became an American while Polish Jewish civilization was still inscribed in her heart and also explores when and how Dawidowicz became the voice of East European Jewry for the American Jewish public. Part 4 exposes the fissure between Dawidowicz’s European-inflected diaspora nationalist modern Jewish identity and the shifting definition of American liberalism from the late 1960s forward, which also saw the emergence of neoconservatism. The book includes an interpretation of her memoir From that Place and Time, as well as an appendix of thirty-one previously unpublished letters that illustrate the broad reach of her work and person.
Dawidowicz’s right-wing politics, sex, and unabashed commitment to Jewish particularism in an East European Jewish key have resulted in scholarly neglect. Therefore, this book is strongly recommended for scholars and general readers interested in Jewish and women’s studies.
From Left to Right is structured in four parts. Part 1 tells the story of Dawidowicz’s childhood, adolescence, and college years when she was an immigrant daughter living in New York City. Part 2 narrates Dawidowicz’s formative European years in Poland, New York City (when she was enclosed in the European-like world of the New York YIVO), and Germany. Part 3 tells how Dawidowicz became an American while Polish Jewish civilization was still inscribed in her heart and also explores when and how Dawidowicz became the voice of East European Jewry for the American Jewish public. Part 4 exposes the fissure between Dawidowicz’s European-inflected diaspora nationalist modern Jewish identity and the shifting definition of American liberalism from the late 1960s forward, which also saw the emergence of neoconservatism. The book includes an interpretation of her memoir From that Place and Time, as well as an appendix of thirty-one previously unpublished letters that illustrate the broad reach of her work and person.
Dawidowicz’s right-wing politics, sex, and unabashed commitment to Jewish particularism in an East European Jewish key have resulted in scholarly neglect. Therefore, this book is strongly recommended for scholars and general readers interested in Jewish and women’s studies.
729 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 10, 2020
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November 16, 2020
Library - overdrive ebook.
I started this book with an interest in learning more about Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz....
....I LEARNED A LOT...THIS IS AN AMBITIOUS INFORMATIVE BIOGRAPHY
...I SKIMMED A LITTLE...( some hard-core academic parts)...
I LOVED THE MANY PHOTOS ( part of why this book is 600 pages long)....
I LOVE THE INSERTS ....letters to and from Lucy ....( they were personal and political...but ‘personal’ being the parts I warmed to most)....yet we needed the political to help ‘feel’ the personal ....
I might not be making any sense here....but it was the COMBINATION of personal and political that worked.
*Nancy Sinkoff* is quite inspiring in her own right!
She is the Academic Director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center of Jewish life and Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is the author of “Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderland”.
It was a pleasure to listen to Nancy’s YouTube on this book.
I began to get a great flavor of who Lucy Dawidowicz was.
Nancy didn’t share a thing about herself in the YouTube. But she did in the introduction of this book.
I’m sharing part of Nancy’s introduction...because for me it added real & warm connection between the author - and her subject: Lucy.
I found myself in ‘awe’ of both women. ( as I’d love to have been both of their friends).
Nancy writes:
“In the summer of 1989 I summited Cascade Mountain, the easiest of the Adirondacks’ High Peaks, with my eldest son on my back. Little did I know then that the climb would lead to a two-and-a-half *decade* pursuit of joining the Adirondack 46ers, a somewhat exclusive club of hikers who have reached the top of—and successfully descended—all forty-six highest mountains in the Adirondack park. In the summer of 2015, I finished my quest on Hough Mountain in the Dix range with my husband and a hiking partner, earning badge #9079.
I read Lucy S. Dawidowicz’s memoir the same year as that first High Peak step. Little did I know then that I would embark on her biography years later, after winding my way through the eighteenth century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the salons of Frederick the Great’s Berlin. Like hiking the Adirondacks, this Journey has been full of extraordinary pleasures: expansive intellectual vistas, uncharted horizons, inspired collegiality, and unexpected scholarly discoveries. It has also been full of metaphoric spruce traps, weather inversions, blisters, sore muscles, exhaustion, and a few false summits”.
From sore muscles ....to sore mental exhaustion?.....
All I know ...is that this is one heck of an incredible book. I experienced TWO GREAT WOMEN.
“In 1987, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, author of the best-selling History of the Holocaust, ‘The War Against the Jews’ 1933-1945 (1975), received a ‘plea’ from her good friend, Cynthia Ozick, entreating her not ‘to destroy any more papers’”. ( note...Cynthia Ozick is an author I must read too)
Moving on...
We get a grande experience about Lucy’s life, career, Jewish politics,
her relationship with the war ( in Poland before Nazi invasion and in Germany soon after).
Dawidowicz encountered America from a solid Jewish cultural and linguistic ground, with a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.
We learn about neoconservatism and individuals who professed its values into the history of diaspora Jewish politics, with particular attention to East European Jewish politics and their transformation on American soil.
Dawidowicz’s life helped people connect postwar American Jewish political conservatism to the long history of Jewish politics.
Haunted by Nazism and the Holocaust, Dawidowicz’s life and work intersected with the central issues and personalities that shaped Jewish life and the 20th century.
We learned that Dawidowicz was full of contradictions.
“She was a youthful communist turned cold warrior who then became deeply suspicious of the New Left. She was a professional woman who trusted feminism, was a lover of Yiddish language who later rejected Yiddishism.
She was a lover if high culture— Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the classics of English and Yiddish literature. She was a Mets fan, prided herself on her talents in the kitchen, and was an addictive smoker.
She was considered a “tough bird”. She was smart, funny, brave, but are so stubborn, bitter, judge mental, and unforgiving”.
This Book is structured in four parts that move back-and-forth between New York City and Europe. It emphasizes the European influence of Dawidowicz’s political turn in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s also an American story.
Dawidowicz was born in the Bronx....
She said she chose to become the “last witness” to the culture and history of East Jewish civilization.
There were a few times when reading about Lucy.... she reminded me of my own mother. Lucy was dedicated to studying Yiddish ( as my mother did for many years too), but both Lucy and my mother rejected it as a basis for Jewish life. My mother even looked a little like Lucy ( it was kinda scary).... and both women were political thinkers who were a force to reckon with.
As a child I literally turned off to all the political talk in my house ( years later I regretted this).... but I would rather stand on my head and go do gymnastics any day than to hear one more political anything.
Ha....now look at me...
.....it took me 68 years and a President as bad as Trump to finally get political, too. My mother might be looking down at me now....saying “it’s about time”.
Add being Jewish....( well, we come with all sorts of baggage)...
But....
perhaps I’ve turned ( respectively), into a meshuggener woman.
This historical biography is not a simple read...( some of it was though), but it’s sure a phenomenal achievement.
Nancy Sinkoff deserves much praise for this book ....
It’s a great contribution to those interested in Jewish women, and Jewish history.
Tomorrow I’ll start the Audiobook.....“A Promise Land”....by and read by Barack Obama.
I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been listening to Obama speak about his autobiography the last few days... and I’m excited to listen to him for another 29 hours and 10 minutes.
I started this book with an interest in learning more about Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz....
....I LEARNED A LOT...THIS IS AN AMBITIOUS INFORMATIVE BIOGRAPHY
...I SKIMMED A LITTLE...( some hard-core academic parts)...
I LOVED THE MANY PHOTOS ( part of why this book is 600 pages long)....
I LOVE THE INSERTS ....letters to and from Lucy ....( they were personal and political...but ‘personal’ being the parts I warmed to most)....yet we needed the political to help ‘feel’ the personal ....
I might not be making any sense here....but it was the COMBINATION of personal and political that worked.
*Nancy Sinkoff* is quite inspiring in her own right!
She is the Academic Director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center of Jewish life and Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is the author of “Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderland”.
It was a pleasure to listen to Nancy’s YouTube on this book.
I began to get a great flavor of who Lucy Dawidowicz was.
Nancy didn’t share a thing about herself in the YouTube. But she did in the introduction of this book.
I’m sharing part of Nancy’s introduction...because for me it added real & warm connection between the author - and her subject: Lucy.
I found myself in ‘awe’ of both women. ( as I’d love to have been both of their friends).
Nancy writes:
“In the summer of 1989 I summited Cascade Mountain, the easiest of the Adirondacks’ High Peaks, with my eldest son on my back. Little did I know then that the climb would lead to a two-and-a-half *decade* pursuit of joining the Adirondack 46ers, a somewhat exclusive club of hikers who have reached the top of—and successfully descended—all forty-six highest mountains in the Adirondack park. In the summer of 2015, I finished my quest on Hough Mountain in the Dix range with my husband and a hiking partner, earning badge #9079.
I read Lucy S. Dawidowicz’s memoir the same year as that first High Peak step. Little did I know then that I would embark on her biography years later, after winding my way through the eighteenth century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the salons of Frederick the Great’s Berlin. Like hiking the Adirondacks, this Journey has been full of extraordinary pleasures: expansive intellectual vistas, uncharted horizons, inspired collegiality, and unexpected scholarly discoveries. It has also been full of metaphoric spruce traps, weather inversions, blisters, sore muscles, exhaustion, and a few false summits”.
From sore muscles ....to sore mental exhaustion?.....
All I know ...is that this is one heck of an incredible book. I experienced TWO GREAT WOMEN.
“In 1987, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, author of the best-selling History of the Holocaust, ‘The War Against the Jews’ 1933-1945 (1975), received a ‘plea’ from her good friend, Cynthia Ozick, entreating her not ‘to destroy any more papers’”. ( note...Cynthia Ozick is an author I must read too)
Moving on...
We get a grande experience about Lucy’s life, career, Jewish politics,
her relationship with the war ( in Poland before Nazi invasion and in Germany soon after).
Dawidowicz encountered America from a solid Jewish cultural and linguistic ground, with a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.
We learn about neoconservatism and individuals who professed its values into the history of diaspora Jewish politics, with particular attention to East European Jewish politics and their transformation on American soil.
Dawidowicz’s life helped people connect postwar American Jewish political conservatism to the long history of Jewish politics.
Haunted by Nazism and the Holocaust, Dawidowicz’s life and work intersected with the central issues and personalities that shaped Jewish life and the 20th century.
We learned that Dawidowicz was full of contradictions.
“She was a youthful communist turned cold warrior who then became deeply suspicious of the New Left. She was a professional woman who trusted feminism, was a lover of Yiddish language who later rejected Yiddishism.
She was a lover if high culture— Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the classics of English and Yiddish literature. She was a Mets fan, prided herself on her talents in the kitchen, and was an addictive smoker.
She was considered a “tough bird”. She was smart, funny, brave, but are so stubborn, bitter, judge mental, and unforgiving”.
This Book is structured in four parts that move back-and-forth between New York City and Europe. It emphasizes the European influence of Dawidowicz’s political turn in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s also an American story.
Dawidowicz was born in the Bronx....
She said she chose to become the “last witness” to the culture and history of East Jewish civilization.
There were a few times when reading about Lucy.... she reminded me of my own mother. Lucy was dedicated to studying Yiddish ( as my mother did for many years too), but both Lucy and my mother rejected it as a basis for Jewish life. My mother even looked a little like Lucy ( it was kinda scary).... and both women were political thinkers who were a force to reckon with.
As a child I literally turned off to all the political talk in my house ( years later I regretted this).... but I would rather stand on my head and go do gymnastics any day than to hear one more political anything.
Ha....now look at me...
.....it took me 68 years and a President as bad as Trump to finally get political, too. My mother might be looking down at me now....saying “it’s about time”.
Add being Jewish....( well, we come with all sorts of baggage)...
But....
perhaps I’ve turned ( respectively), into a meshuggener woman.
This historical biography is not a simple read...( some of it was though), but it’s sure a phenomenal achievement.
Nancy Sinkoff deserves much praise for this book ....
It’s a great contribution to those interested in Jewish women, and Jewish history.
Tomorrow I’ll start the Audiobook.....“A Promise Land”....by and read by Barack Obama.
I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been listening to Obama speak about his autobiography the last few days... and I’m excited to listen to him for another 29 hours and 10 minutes.
May 21, 2020
Sinkoff's biography of Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz succeeds on every level. It is informative as well as engaging reading and her treatment of its subjects is even-handed. We learn about Dawidowicz's year of research at YIVO in Vilna, and her narrow escape from Poland in late August 1939, shortly before the Nazis invaded. We also read about all of her subsequent activities, ranging from her work with Jews in postwar Germany to her writings on political and historical matters for important publications like Commentary. She and the other scholars and personalities discussed in the book involved themselves in many contemporary debates, including whether Yiddish secular culture and/or the Jewish religion were essential element(s) in sustaining Eastern European Jewish civilization, the belongingness or "Polishness" (or lack thereof) of Jews in 20th-century Poland, the degree of culpability of ordinary Germans and/or Poles in collaborating with the Nazi machine to bring Jews to their death, whether Poles did enough to save Jews and whether they could have done more, when it was that Hitler had initially decided to kill Jews in his mind, and whether the most proper Jewish home is to be found in Israel or the diaspora. The author also delves into the 1960s-1970s with such topics as anti-Jewish attitudes among some African-Americans, anti-Zionist positions held by many leftist movements and political regimes, and the transformation of a minority of American Jews (including Dawidowicz herself) from supporters of the Democratic Party to neoconservatism. Dawidowicz became a strong opponent of Communism and a supporter of Israel and Soviet Jewry but by the 1980s she believed that the Yiddish language, which had once interested her so much, had become "dead".
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews