In heightened climate of intolerance, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust names new leadership

The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust announced a new executive team with interim director Beth Kean promoted to executive director, and board member Paul Nussbaum bumped up to board president and CEO. Both are descendants of Holocaust survivors.

Nussbaum says the team’s first order of business will be to launch a strategic planning process to give the museum, which is at Pan Pacific Park in the Fairfax District, a broader national and international profile.

“We have to create a strategic plan that involves a national agenda and international joint ventures and partnerships,” Nussbaum says. “Our plan can’t just be about Los Angeles.”

Nussbaum adds that the museum’s mission — which includes educating the public about the history of the Holocaust through exhibitions and extensive public programming — has become more relevant than ever in the current political climate. Since the beginning of the year, incidents of anti-Semitism have been reported throughout the country, with dozens of Jewish community centers enduring bomb threats and vandals attacking Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia.

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Chris Alexakis