Sunday, April 16 at 11 a.m. (In-person)
Brad Snyder author of Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment
JCC Members Free / Community $10

Democratic Justice is the definitive biography of Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court justice and
champion of twentieth-century American liberal democracy. Frankfurter, an Austrian-Jewish immigrant, arrived in the United States at age eleven unable to speak a word of English. By age twenty six, he had befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and by age fifty was one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers. He became the third Jewish U.S. Supreme Court justice, and a leading Zionist. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in “Brown v. Board of Education.” He fought for a Jewish state at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, saved his uncle from a Nazi prison in Vienna after the Anchluss, and he and his allies persuaded Harry Truman to be the first world leader to recognize the State of Israel.

Brad Snyder is a professor of constitutional law and twentieth century American legal history
at Georgetown University Law Center. In addition to his legal scholarship, he has written for
Politico, Slate, and The Washington Post. He lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Moderated by Cheryl Bader, JD, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law.

Light Brunch will be served.