UCLA program seeks to understand and mitigate hate 

The 2022 launch of the Initiative to Study Hate, spearheaded by historian David Myers, represents a critical effort to root out what’s causing the alarming rise in hate across the country — and what we can do to stop it.

Read how the program is examining human experiences and addressing societal problems in UCLA Magazine.

 UCLA professors follow feathers to explore unique avenues of study

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, the Viterbi Family Professor in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, is also the author of the book “Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce,” which unearths the forgotten history of how Jews were central to hubs of the global feather trade.

Read more about Stein, as well as Professor Ellen Pearlstein, who studies Indigenous featherwork of Central and South America.

Meyer Luskin on the future of history — and a look back at his own

The impact of Meyer and Renee Luskin’s leadership and giving at UCLA cannot be overstated, with their generosity touching nearly every area of campus. In 2024, the alumni couple made a landmark $25 million pledge to support the UCLA Department of History.

Read more about the Luskins and their love for history from UCLA Newsroom.

‘Our main work is about dialogue, which is not always comfortable’

Israeli-born artist Elya Aboutboul-Bilia explores her Jewish heritage through bilingual art and literature, responding to the trauma of war with works symbolizing renewal. As an activist with grassroots organization Standing Together, she advocates for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, embracing dialogue and discomfort as tools for change.

Read more about Aboutboul-Bilia and her work from UCLA Newsroom.

Historian explores fraught analogies between traumatic historical events

Michael Rothberg, UCLA’s 1939 Society Samuel Goetz Professor of Holocaust Studies, was one of the first scholars to recognize and write about the troubling, disruptive echoes that linked remembrances of the Holocaust and the end of European colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Read how one sobering reaction to his work inspired new research by the professor on UCLA Newsroom.

Aomar Boum: Cultivating scholarship and empathy in equal measure

Cultural anthropologist Aomar Boum, a Moroccan Muslim scholar, has spent his academic career researching and writing about the history of Jews and Jewish–Muslim relations in Morocco and North Africa.

Justina Blakeney brings her design ethos to life, inspired by Jewish heritage

The UCLA alumna and founder of the lifestyle brand Jungalow reflects on her multicultural upbringing and why she chooses to champion better diversity and inclusivity in the design industry.

Read about how her years at UCLA proved an artful foundation in UCLA Magazine.