Alvin Sokolow

1934 - 2024

Alvin Sokolow

May 29, 1934 - June 1, 2024

Davis, California - Al passed away on June 1, 2024 at the University Retirement Community in Davis after complications from Parkinson's disease. He is survived by his wife of 68 years, Sandra; children Michael, David, Daniel (Lupita Ochoa), and Deborah (Scott Speh); grandchildren Irene Sokolow-Ochoa and Edward Sokolow-Ochoa; sister Shirley Segal; sister-in-law June Shifrin; beloved cousin Audrey Bashkin; and many other cherished relatives. He was preceded in death by his parents Max and Sylvia Sokolow and brothers-in-law Irwin Segal and Philip Shifrin. A native of the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, Al met Sandra in 1952 at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana when both were freshmen. They married in 1955 and ten years later, with three little boys in tow, they moved to Davis where Al joined the Department of Political Science at UC Davis as an assistant professor.

Al received his academic degrees (journalism and political science) from the University of Illinois. He was a faculty member at UC Davis for 39 years (1965-2004), teaching, conducting research, and engaged in outreach work in the areas of American state and local government and politics. He specialized in the politics and governance of small communities, a reversal from his big city origins and teenage fascination with machine politics in Chicago. In the last dozen years of his UC Davis service, Al focused on farmland protection policy in California's Central Valley and elsewhere, after transferring from a professorship in Political Science to a research-outreach position as a Cooperative Extension specialist in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. He credited his training and experience in newspaper work including serving as the editor in chief at the Daily Illini college newspaper in 1955-56 for the interviewing and writing skills he employed as a researcher. He shared his love of journalism with Sandra as both received undergraduate degrees in journalism and wrote for the Daily Illini.

The child of Jewish immigrants from Belarus and Ukraine, Al was able to realize educational and professional achievements that would have been difficult if not impossible to obtain had his parents not left their respective birth countries. He understood the great opportunities the United States offers for immigrants and their offspring and was well aware of the struggles his parents and their relatives faced in Eastern Europe. Al noted that his father immigrated from Belarus before World War I to be able to practice his religion freely and not face conscription into the Russian army.

An avid reader, Al spent many mornings and afternoons in recent years engrossed in a book and was particularly focused on the health of our nation's democracy. A strong believer in the importance of democracy, he co-organized a panel discussion on the state of democracy in the United States for residents of the University Retirement Community where he resided. Al and Sandra were longtime members of Congregation Bet Haverim in Davis, becoming active in the Davis Jewish community not long after they arrived in 1965. And not the least of his passions, along with Sandra he was a lifelong supporter of the Chicago Cubs and was delighted when the Cubs ended the "Curse of the Billy Goat" with their World Series championship in 2016.

A graveside funeral will be held at the Davis Cemetery in the Jewish section on Monday, June 10, 2024 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charity of the donor's choice in memory of Alvin D. Sokolow.