Michael Dobkowski

Dr. Michael Dobkowski is a Professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from New York University. His areas of specialization include the Holocaust, the American Jewish Experience, American Anti-Semitism, Genocide, Jewish Thought and the history of Zionism and Modern Israel. A popular lecturer, he brings analysis tempered by humor and irony to these significant subjects.

Dr. Dobkowski is passionate about his fields of interest. He lives this passion both in the classroom and outside of the classroom, where he is active in community service and Jewish communal activities. He was a key organizer of the HWS Genocide Series, which continues to bring notable speakers on this important topic to campus, and has led three March of Remembrance and Hope Student Leadership trips to Germany and Poland since 2004. He is a former chair of CHAI and an active board member, a faculty member in the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School and a frequent lecturer locally and nationally. He believes that despite violence and apathy, we have to maintain faith in people and in our ability to solve problems through analysis and purposeful and informed action.

A prolific writer, he has written The Tarnished Dream: The Basis of American Anti Semitism, The Politics of Indifference: Documentary History of Holocaust Victims in America, A Family Among Families, and Jewish American Voluntary Organizations. He has co-written, edited and co-edited numerous books including Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear States and Terrorism (2007), On The Edge of Scarcity (2001) and Genocide and the Modern Age (2000).