Synaplex Shabbat Alive

6:00 p.m. Shabbat Dinner, catered by Parties by Panache. Menu: Panache Garden Salad, Saffron Honey Tomato Chicken, Penne Pasta with Grilled Veggies, Charred Aioli Broccoli and Cauliflower. Vegetarian option: Delicata Squash stuffed with Chickpeas and Lentils. Cost: $25 Adults; $15 Children. Register below. 

7:00 p.m. “Is Democracy In Danger?” will be UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s topic at Shabbat Alive service, our jazz and pop service with a band, led by Rabbi Rachlis and Cantor Braier. The first weeks of the Trump Administration have produced an unprecedent flurry of executive orders on a wide array of topics. Should they be a cause for concern? Some have said that we are in a “constitutional crisis.”  Is this accurate or overblown? Is there reason for concern for the future of American democracy? Our Shabbat Alive musicians are sponsored by Gilbert Gluck and Catherine Bradley and Dean Chemerinsky is sponsored by Dr. Steven and Rena Stone. Our Oneg Shabbat will be sponsored by the Do Family in honor of Royce becoming a Bar Mitzvah.

Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. From 1980-1983, he was an assistant professor at DePaul College of Law.

Dean Chemerinsky is the author of nineteen books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. His most recent major books are Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism (2022) and Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights (2021).

He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles and is a contributing writer for the Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times, writes regular columns for the Sacramento Bee, the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, as well as frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. 

In 2016, Dean Chemerinsky was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2024, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States. In 2022, he was the President of the Association of American Law Schools. He received his B.S. at Northwestern University and his J.D. at Harvard Law School. 

To attend services in person, register below. Watch via live stream, or access the video at a later time on our website: University Synagogue | LiveStream Services.