IN FOCUS: Jewish American Heritage Month

Drawing on previously unexamined archives, "Saving Our Survivors" is a book that explores how American Jewish communities first came to learn about and respond to the Holocaust in the immediate aftermath of the war, Written by Rachel Deblinger, who directs the Modern Endangered Archives Program at UCLA Library, the book considers how American Jews constructed meaning out of devastation - and how humanitarian aid became intertwined with public memory.

Listen to a discussion about the book moderated by UCLA professor Michael Rothberg from the UCLA Leve Center for Jewish Studies.

Music and Justice

This series of performances and conversations connected artists and academics to explore issues of race and social justice. Presented by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the series included a historic performance of "The Gates of Justice," the rarely presented large-scale sacred composition by jazz legend Dave Brubeck. For the first time, Brubeck's sons performed as the accompanying jazz trio.

Watch the discussions and live performances featured in this event series from the Lowell Milken Center.

Composer James Horner's personal archive at UCLA Library

The UCLA alumnus was known for his award-winning scores for films such as "Avatar," "Titanic" and "A Beautiful Mind." His archive, part of UCLA Library Special Collections, includes scores and orchestrations, sketches and the composer's handwritten notes and corrections from over 100 films.

Read more about Jewish American film score composer James Horner from UCLA Newsroom.

Reconstructing German-Jewish cultural heritage after the Los Angeles wildfires

In this podcast episode of "Then & Now" by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, Los Angeles-based lawyer and genealogist E. Randol Schoenberg discusses the lives and cultural property lost during the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and how this impacted the German-Jewish immigrant community. This episode is co-produced by David Myers, the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History.

Listen to this episode, which is part of the "The History-Politics Podcast: Putting the Past to Work" series.

The language of Ladino

The annual ucLADINO Judeo-Spanish Conference celebrates the preservation of Ladino language and culture. Ladino, which is also known as Judeo-Spanish or Judezmo, is a language with its roots in the expulsion of the Jews of Spain in 1492 and the movement of Sephardim into various parts of the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Last year's conference focused on the movement and adaptation of Ladino in domestic spaces and in migration.

Watch footage from last year's "LADINO: In & Beyond the Home" conference from the UCLA Leve Center.