Nancy Sinkoff, a professor of Jewish studies and history and academic director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers University in New Jersey, recently won the National Jewish Book Award in the category of biography for her book From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History (Wayne State University Press, 2020).
Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915–1990) was a trailblazing historian in the field now known as Holocaust studies. She was a controversial figure who argued that Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jewish people didn’t evolve over time, but instead was his intended goal before he even rose to power, and that German support for Hitler was driven by antisemitism that existed for centuries.
Dr. Sinkoff joined the faculty at Rutgers University in 1998. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.