UCLA Sephardic Archive Initiative: Building a Centenary Exhibit for Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel

Sara Stein
History
UC Los Angeles

In 2020, the Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles (hereafter STTI) located on Wilshire Boulevard one mile from UCLA, celebrates its centenary. The UCLA Sephardic Archive Initiative proposed creating a visually rich, historically informative, widely-accessible interactive digital exhibit on the history of STTI and the Los Angeles Sephardic community that would be housed on its website and available for users internationally, and displayed on flat screen stations at STTI on a permanent basis. The online exhibit is modeled on the British Museum’s wildly successful “A History of the World in 100 Objects”. Accordingly, it explores the history of STTI—and the broader LA Sephardic community—through a selection of evocative objects culled from the STTI archives which were recently donated to UCLA. This interactive platform exploits the latest technology and platforms designed to curate scholarly material for a public audience. The online exhibit accompanies short scholarly (but widely accessible) articles that explain the history, contributions, and achievements of STTI.