A line of people wound toward the doors of UNLV’s Greenspun Hall on Wednesday night, clutching in their hands copies of “Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” the thick novel of award-winning journalist Yardena Schwartz.

UNLV will participate in a program to find ways to create a more inclusive environment for Jewish students, the university announced this week. UNLV will join 18 other colleges and universities taking part in Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative.

Monday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. To honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day, UNLV hosted an educational event on-campus featuring community leaders like Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley and Commissioner Michael Naft among others. This year’s event also centered on a discussion to consider the significance of the Holocaust and Genocide today.

To know who will protect the marginalized today, one must look at the empathy exhibited in the past, according to Heidi Straus. Straus is the head of a nonprofit called Nevada Center for Humanity, which aims to educate the community about the Holocaust. Last year, she partnered with UNLV’s history department to curate an exhibit with the organization’s collection of artifacts from the Holocaust.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Monday, January 27, UNLV and Las Vegas leaders will gather on campus to host an event to honor the victims, survivors, and resistors of the Holocaust.

“Community.” “Curious.” “Expectant.” “Unified.” In one word, each person explains his or her feelings at this particular moment. Seated in a circle of red plastic chairs, an array of community spiritual leaders and UNLV students and faculty pass a microphone to introduce themselves at the “How to Be a Peacemaker” discussion group, part of the university’s ongoing Diversity Dialogues series.

UNLV history professor Gregory Brown, along with other faculty and staff, founded the university’s first Jewish Affinity Group. Its aim is to host discussions on Jewish identity and expand UNLV’s Jewish studies.

From illuminating the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign in yellow and blue, to praying for peace and calling for more military gear to be shipped across the ocean, Nevadans are taking a range of steps to show solidarity with Ukraine as it fends off a Russian invasion.