The Brief

In 1943, Hedy Shenk arrived in Los Angeles. She was one of the thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe fleeing the Nazis. Life as a single mother was hard, and Hedy worked tirelessly as a bus driver, quality control supervisor at Xerox, and toy entrepreneur.

But Hedy had another job, which meant more to her than any other. She was determined to reclaim the artworks and treasures stolen from her family during the horrors of the Holocaust.

RECLAIMED: A Family Painting, on view at the Skirball Cultural Center Oct. 19 to March 3, tells the remarkable story of Hedy, her daughter, Liz Goldman, and her granddaughter, Cheryl Bernstein. These three generations of Angeleno women spent over eight decades fighting to regain their rightful inheritance. “

The desire to heal wounds, to understand your family history is very strong, and neither restitution or reclamation is about making money,” Cheryl Bernstein says in a testimonial video on view at the exhibition. “It's more about understanding family, bringing families back together.”

Johann and Lisbeth Bloch in Brno, Czechoslovakia, c. 1903

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Carl Pietzner, K.U.K Hof-Atelier

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Courtesy of Elizabeth H. Scholtz

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The family’s saga begins in another time and place. Hedy was born in 1906, to Johann and Lisbeth Bloch. Johann ran E. Block & Company, his family’s prominent leather goods business. The elegant Bloch home in Brno, Czechoslovakia, was a vibrant, cultural place, filled with noted artworks and Czech glass collected by Lisbeth. The Blochs passed on their love of the arts to their daughter, Hedy, who took art classes and learned how to sew from the family’s live-in seamstress.

In 1922, the Blochs purchased their most valuable work, Baroque German artist Johann Carl Loth’s 17th century painting Isaac Blessing Jacob from the Dorotheum Auction House in Vienna. The painting was hung in place of honor in their dining room, which was often graced by members of their close, extended family, many who would later be killed in the Holocaust.

Lisbeth would have little time to enjoy her prized painting. She was killed in a car crash in 1928. Life went on, and Hedy married a Catholic engineer named Leo Schenck (Hedy would later change the spelling of her name to Shenk). Their daughter, Liz, was born in 1936. But the family’s happiness was tempered by the growing menace of the Nazis.

Isaac Blessing Jacob by Johann Carl Loth

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Robert Wedemeyer

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Loan courtesy of Elizabeth H. Scholtz

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Aware of the enormous danger facing him as Jewish man, Johann and his new wife, Erna, attempted to get a visa to Switzerland, but they were denied. In September 1938, the Nazi-controlled Czech government confiscated the Blochs’ grand Brno home, along with their art collection. Johann and Erna fled to family in Prague. While still attempting to export his art collection to England for safety, Johann died of natural causes in 1940. Erna was killed by the Nazis.

The family believes that Isaac Blessing Jacob was stolen from the Bloch house in 1939, and resold at Dorotheum Auction House, one of approximately 600,000 Jewish owned artworks looted by the Nazis.

Bloch Family Dining Room in Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1930s

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Dr. Bruno Wolf

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Courtesy of Elizabeth H. Scholtz

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Meanwhile, Hedy and her husband were in their own race to escape. In 1938, Hedy and her daughter were baptized by a Catholic priest to shield them from anti-Jewish persecution. The young family fled to Switzerland, but Hedy had one more thing she had to do.

In 1939, she ventured back to Brno, collecting important family photos, including one showing Isaac Blessing Jacob in the family dining room, which would prove invaluable in her fight for reclamation.

“My grandmother was so incredibly smart and forward-thinking,” Cheryl Bernstein says. “As she's fleeing in the middle of the night with her toddler, she had the presence of mind to take the professional photographs of the inside of her father's home with her, and the minute she found out her father had died … they started working on his estate.”

Elizabeth Schenk arriving in New York as a refugee, 1940.

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Courtesy of Elizabeth H. Scholtz

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As World War II ravaged Europe, Hedy was able to obtain visas for her family to go to America. In July 1940, they arrived in New York aboard the Cunard White Star’s RMS Scythia along with many other war refugees. A photo of an excited looking four-year-old Liz was published in the Daily News, along with other child refugees. The paper minimized the trauma Liz had suffered, claiming she took the escape as a “lark.”

The small family moved around America as Leo took engineering work before permanently settling in Los Angeles, then a haven for European refugees. Always industrious, Hedy was able to obtain a bank loan to purchase a small apartment building and rent out some of the units to tenants. Hedy and Leo divorced in 1947, and Hedy proved to be an enterprising spirit. In the 1950s, she even created a line of whimsical hand sewn stuffed animals called Hollyfornia Creations.

However, Hedy never forgot the life and inheritance that had been stolen from her. For 50 years, she repeatedly filed art claims with the Czech and German governments, using photos and surviving family members’ testimony to prove ownership.

With her modest funds, Hedy hired expensive international lawyers and traveled to Europe repeatedly in an attempt to track down her family’s collection. In the 1960s, Liz joined in the search and brought her daughter Cheryl along. Together, the three-generations toured Austrian salt mines, where Nazis reportedly hid looted art, and visited the Bloch family home in Brno searching for clues.

Although Hedy would receive modest reparations and payments from the Blochs’ confiscated bank accounts and property, she was never able to recover Loth’s Isaac Blessing Jacob or her family’s other lost artistic treasures. She died in 1997.

But her daughter and granddaughter were not finished. In the early 2000s, Liz took up the family’s quest. “n 2001, a claim was filed with the Art Loss Register. That claim led to the Holocaust Claims Processing Office.

“It took about 20 years until this very brilliant attorney, Rebecca Friedman, finally started looking into…the Czech claims, that things really started to roll along,” Cheryl says. “In about 2019, she called me with this great news that the Loth painting has shown up at the Dorotheum for auction, and they contacted her because we had a claim. It was really at that point that the hard work started because they had the painting, we knew we were heirs, we had to prove to them that we were the heirs.”

Using Hedy’s meticulous records, her decades of legal correspondence, and the photos she had spirited away, the family was able to prove that Isaac Blessing Jacob was rightfully theirs. In 2020, the painting was finally returned to the Bloch family. In February, four paintings Johann Bloch had been forced to “donate” to the National Gallery Prague were also returned to Cheryl at an official restitution ceremony.

While much of the Bloch collection remains lost, Isaac Blessing Jacob is the centerpiece of RECLAIMED: A Family Painting, hanging in a recreation of the Bloch family dining room, filled with mementoes and artifacts from the family’s century long odyssey.

“This painting has brought my mother and I even closer together. I'm grateful for the journey that this painting brought in my life, and the deeper understanding of everything she went through,” Cheryl Bernstein says. “I am grateful to the Skirball for allowing us to put it here, where I knew it would be honored in the way that I felt my grandmother deserved and my mother deserved. Grandma worked on this her entire life.”

Duplex projects will be allowed to move forward once again in two Southern California cities affected by last year’s fires. The change of course is the result of a court showdown between advocates for denser housing and local elected officials who wanted to ban more units from cropping up in burn zones.

The cities of Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to settle with the plaintiffs who brought forward a lawsuit that challenges local jurisdictions’ suspension of Senate Bill 9 in high fire risk zones, according to documents obtained by LAist.

Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the result will help residents get more out of their properties.

“I want them to know that they can build,” Trauss said.

How we got here

SB 9 allows single-family homeowners across the state to build duplexes and split their lots. It became state law in 2021. SB 9 applicants can use the law to create up to four units where a single-family home once stood, in some cases. The law takes away the ability of local governments to block these projects.

However, after the 2025 fires, some homeowners affected by the fires erupted with anger over the prospect of their burned-down neighborhoods being rebuilt with denser housing. They argued more homes — and the additional residents that come with them — would clog evacuations and hurt neighborhood character.

In July 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order giving local leaders the power to block the law in very high fire hazard areas within the Palisades and Eaton fire burn zones.

Elected officials in L.A. city, the county of L.A., Pasadena and Malibu followed suit and adopted policies to stop processing SB 9 applications in those areas.

Advocates for increased housing development, including YIMBY Law, sued the governments, alleging they didn’t have the authority to suspend laws passed by the legislature.

Trauss told LAist housing advocates believe the order is being misused for political purposes.

“ It chips away at the policy,” she said. “Especially in the Palisades, everybody could watch the political back-and-forth that caused that to happen.”

The backlash on social media to SB 9 projects in the Palisades was led by former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the fire and later mounted an unsuccessful campaign for L.A. mayor.

What the settlement means

According to the settlement documents, Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to repeal the local ordinances that blocked SB 9 projects by the end of September. The settlements still require City Council action to undo those bans.

The cities are also supposed to process any pending SB 9 applications that were submitted, paused or rejected.

Another plaintiff in the lawsuit — Andrew Slocum, CEO of Green Development Company — said he thinks Newsom never should have signed the executive order in the first place.

Slocum said he hopes to see recovering homeowners have more options when rebuilding their properties. Last year, he told LAist he was working with homeowners on SB 9 projects.

The settlement “allows for the people to hopefully be able to come back and resubmit that application,” Slocum said, “because most people who are doing SB 9 are the homeowners themselves.”

The Pasadena City Council took the first step toward repeal on July 20, according to city spokesperson Lisa Derderian. She said they’ll start processing SB 9 applications once the vote is finalized.

“The City reached a conditional settlement with YIMBY in recognition of the uncertainty inherent in litigation and the significant passage of time since the Eaton Fire in January 2025,” she said in a statement.

LAist contacted officials in the city of Malibu for comment but has not heard back.

What’s next

The county and city of L.A. are still fighting the lawsuit. They control land use in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, home to the lion’s share of properties affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

State officials also continue to defend the restrictions. Newsom’s office stands behind the executive order and plans to defend it in court, according to a state official.

Trauss said the parties met for  a trial setting conference a few days ago.

“ I want the folks in the county and in the city of L.A. who could build … to have hope,” she said.

The lawsuit is playing out while state legislators are moving forward with a new bill, SB 1090, which would expand the ban on SB 9 to all of Altadena.

One Hollywood icon is prepping for a comeback. The Cinerama Dome – one of the most famous movie theaters in the world – has been closed since the COVID pandemic. But it's now got a new lease on life, thanks to SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

The studio announced it will lease, restore and reopen the famous theater in 2028; Alamo Drafthouse plans to program and operate it and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex.

"Hot damn! We're bringing the Dome back, baby," SONY Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman said in a statement. "We believe in moviegoing down to our soul, and no venue on Earth stands more for that than the one-of-a-kind Dome."

"There's a lot of passion behind this theater," says Michael O'Leary, who heads Cinema United, the global association of movie theater owners. He says while the Cinerama Dome's closing was a symbol of the pandemic, its recovery is proof the pandemic is behind us and movie theater-going is back.

"It's really exciting," agrees Escott Norton, former executive director and current board member of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. "There's been a lot of people waiting with baited breath to see when the dome is going to reopen. People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience."

As an LA native and former film production designer, Norton has great memories of going to the Cinerama Dome. He says it was always an immersive experience to watch movies inside the geodesic-shaped auditorium designed to show wide screen movies.

"When I saw Close Encounters on this giant screen curved around me, it knocked my socks off," he says, adding he was also blown away watching Apocalypse Now at the Dome. "The movie opens up with this wide screen of just a quiet jungle, birds tweeting and then it explodes. Being surrounded by that on the curved screen, it still gives me tingles thinking about it."

The Cinerama Dome in October 2021.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 by William Forman – the founder of Pacific Theaters, who had popularized drive-in cinemas. Forman commissioned a French architect who had studied under R. Buckminster Fuller, a designer of other geodesic structures. The theater was originally made to showcase Cinerama, a format developed in the 1950s that was part of the widescreen craze designed to lure viewers away from television and back to cinemas.

Forman was able to get the theater constructed in 16 weeks … just in time for the world premiere of a madcap comedy called, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The movie ran four hours long, with an intermission. Filmmakers had originally planned to use the Cinerama format, but abandoned it, shooting in Ultra Panavision 70 millimeter instead.

Still, it featured a who's who of comedy at the time – including Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Milton Berle, and Buddy Hackett. Buster Keaton even makes a ten second cameo. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World played at the Cinerama Dome, the brand new theater, for two years without stopping," recalled Karen Sharpe, the widow of the movie's director, Stanley Kramer. The former TV actress and producer spoke at a rally to preserve the Cinerama Dome last year, and talked about the star-studded premiere.

"It was a real happening," she remembered. "Bobby Kennedy came, Adlai Stevenson came and President and Mrs. Kennedy accepted the invitation to attend the opening. A few days before, they called to say 'So sorry, we have to [decline] the invitation because President and Mrs. Kennedy have to go to Dallas.' And we know what happened in Dallas."

Over the decades, the theater became a mecca for cinephiles. The dome was sometimes costumed like the movies it screened. Once, a replica Godzilla appeared to burst through the egg-like roof. Another time it was painted green with ears to resemble Shrek's head. Figures depicting the Pink Panther, Spider Man and the Minions have perched or crawled atop the Dome.

And fans were treated to countless premieres and special events, like when filmmaker Quentin Tarantino personally welcomed audiences to his 2019 feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For the film, he included exterior shots of the Dome.

Two years later, after the Cinerama Dome's operators went bankrupt during the pandemic, Tarantino talked about how it was one of his favorite LA landmarks.

"I don't know if I could 100% afford it, but I would love to own the Cinerama Dome," he said on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM. "That would be fantastic."

Tarantino already owns two other historic LA cinemas. But other preservationists and activists have been working to revive the dormant theater. Many of them credit the efforts of Benjamin Steinberg, a 27-year-old filmmaker and actor who appeared on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

"The Cinerama Dome is the most famous movie theater in the world," Steinberg said, standing outside the boarded-up theater. "It seemed like it was going to be a demolition by neglect. So I was, like, something has to be done."

Steinberg created a campaign to save the Cinerama Dome. He organized a few street rallies, and wrote an online petition that amassed more than 30,000 signatures.

Ben Steinberg projected images onto the dome as part of a campaign to save the theater.

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Ben Steinberg

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Then in March, Steinberg went even further to get the attention of the Forman family, which still owns the property: he projected images of the owners' faces onto the outside of the Dome, asking them to reopen the theater.

"We actually projected it for two hours and then they called the police on us," Steinberg explains. "We didn't get arrested; The police just said that the ownership considered it an escalation and harassment. I never wanted to anger the owner, so we stopped immediately."

Steinberg's stunt created a lot of buzz, and may have moved the needle, says theater preservationist Norton. His group had been consulting with architects on restoration plans in hopes that someone would save the day.

"We were all working behind the scenes. But Ben Steinberg really got on board on social media to save the dome," says Norton. "I'm very happy he did. You know, you sort of have to rattle the chains sometimes."

Meanwhile, Sony has promised to preserve the Cinerama Dome's history while ensuring its future.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A pair of federal court battles unfolding in the coming weeks could reshape the future of homelessness funding across the Los Angeles region.

Two separate lawsuits challenging recent actions by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will help determine whether L.A.’s embattled lead homelessness agency can compete for up to $241 million in federal grants this year and how that money can be spent.

Both legal challenges reflect a broader fight over the Trump administration's efforts to remake federal homelessness policy and crack down on perceived misspending by local governments overseeing federal assistance programs.

Will lead L.A. agency stay suspended?

The lawsuits center on HUD’s national Continuum of Care grant competition, the largest source of federal homelessness dollars flowing to L.A. each year.

Since the 1990s, HUD has required metropolitan areas like L.A. County to submit one single application for the region’s entire chunk of annual funding. The L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, has been responsible for submitting that application on behalf of the region.

That changed in June, when HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity pending a federal investigation into alleged financial mismanagement. The federal agency said LAHSA’s suspension meant it was not allowed to apply for this year’s grants, even though the agency has been working on an application.

LAHSA sued to overturn the suspension and is moving forward with its application while awaiting guidance from the court. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 6 on LAHSA’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

HUD has since formally invited homeless service providers to apply directly for the federal homelessness money, bypassing LAHSA entirely.

Meanwhile, the L.A. County Development Authority has offered to apply for the region instead of LAHSA, if necessary.

HUD’s application deadline is Aug. 26. That’s when LAHSA, or an alternative applicant, would submit its final application to the federal government.

Shift away from permanent housing

The second lawsuit between HUD and local officials focuses on how federal homelessness dollars can be spent.

The L.A. Continuum of Care historically spends about 90% of its more than $200 million federal funding allocation on permanent housing interventions — including subsidies to help cover people’s rent, according to LAHSA.

That approach is part of a philosophy and strategy known as “housing first,” which prioritizes providing unhoused people with a stable place to live as the first step towards recovery from life on the streets. Additional issues, like unemployment, addiction, mental illness or other health problems, are typically addressed only after first moving someone indoors.

But that approach is now under fire from the Trump Administration, which has made multiple attempts to remake the federal Continuum of Care program to fund fewer permanent housing beds and focus more on drug treatment, recovery and enforcement.

As the Trump administration geared up to pivot away from the “housing first” model, HUD initially proposed rules limiting permanent housing to 30% of local spending. Last year, the city of L.A. and other municipalities joined litigation challenging the HUD guidance.

This June, Judge Mary McElroy struck down the proposed HUD rules, but denied cities’ request for a permanent injunction.

HUD had already issued new grant regulations, this time capping permanent housing at no more than 60% of local spending plans, forcing the states to start over with a new legal complaint assigned to the same federal judge.

U.S. President Donald Trump greets United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner during the congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on May 19, 2026 in Washington, DC.

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Heather Diehl

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Getty Images

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States push back

Last month, nearly two dozen states, including California, sued HUD over those regulations, asking McElroy to again throw out HUD’s new funding rules.

The proposed rules put more than 5,000 Angelenos at risk for homelessness, according to projections by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonprofit research and advocacy group.

The states hope for a ruling by Aug. 10, so that regions like L.A. have time to align their applications. The lawsuit argues the restrictions conflict with federal law and undermine the federal government's long-standing “housing first” strategy.

The Trump administration says the new rules are intended to move federal policy toward approaches emphasizing mental health treatment, addiction recovery and personal accountability.

If HUD prevails, local officials warn the consequences could ripple across L.A. County, affecting one of the region’s largest sources of funding for permanent supportive housing and other homelessness programs.

The federal funding at stake has been roughly a quarter of LAHSA’s annual budget in recent years and is among the largest single sources of money for the region’s homelessness programs, which are also funded by the state, county and city.

The story behind the Trump admin’s LAHSA fight

HUD imposed the suspension earlier this year amid mounting scrutiny of LAHSA's financial oversight and operations. Auditors and local officials have raised longstanding concerns about the agency’s internal controls, contract monitoring and oversight of homelessness funds.

LAHSA argues HUD's suspension is unlawful and could jeopardize the region's ability to secure funding.

On July 2, Carter directed HUD and LAHSA to propose an order to temporarily keep the current funding process in place while the case moves forward. The two sides couldn't agree on the terms.

LAHSA sent an email to service providers last week urging them to continue with the current process.

“Please do not let this notice disrupt your current application preparation,” the letter said. “We strongly urge all service providers to stay the course.”

Other regional homelessness officials clarified they’re moving forward with the consolidated application and working to protect existing program funding.

Sarah Mahin, director of L.A. County’s new Department of Homelessness and Housing, said the county expects to receive more direction from the court before or at the August 6 hearing. Until then, Mahin said, “The existing competition process and LAHSA’s role as collaborative applicant should remain undisturbed while the court considers the preliminary injunction motion.”

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter walks on a tour of the VA's West LA facilities on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024 in West Los Angeles, CA.

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Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Los Angeles Times

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How the feds are planning for court decisions

In a July 21 court filing, HUD said it intends to delay any final action against the L.A. Continuum of Care until Aug. 10, or whenever the court rules on LAHSA’s request for a preliminary injunction.

HUD also said that if the suspension holds and LAHSA and the court determine local applicants must apply directly, the federal agency will give providers an additional 30 days to submit their applications.

Carter is also overseeing a major L.A. legal settlement stemming from a lawsuit by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights over the city and county’s response to the homelessness crisis. Carter ordered all of the parties in the Alliance settlement to also appear at the Aug. 6 hearing in the case between LAHSA and HUD.

How service providers are preparing

Homeless service providers, caught in the middle of HUD’s legal battles with LAHSA and with states, say they want to make sure services aren’t disrupted.

LAHSA’s own deadline for local homeless service providers to submit their individual applications as part of the collaborative application process was last week. More than 100 local nonprofit service providers have already submitted theirs.

Several organizations told LAist they’re prepared to submit applications directly to HUD, including Hope the Mission, a large homeless services provider operating primarily in the San Fernando Valley.

“While larger organizations have the administrative capacity to pivot quickly, we are concerned about smaller, specialized community providers who may struggle to navigate a direct HUD submission without localized technical assistance,” said Ivet Samvelyan, a vice president at Hope the Mission.

Service providers told LAist they’re watching the two court cases closely, and awaiting clearer guidance from local officials about what to do next.

“Our concern is less about the application process itself and more about the policy direction it represents, which is an attempt to take funding away from evidence-based practices such as permanent supportive housing and instead fund programs that require sobriety and compliance,” said Tian Martinez, a spokesperson at Union Station Homeless Services.

The Alhambra City Council voted unanimously Monday to put a measure on the November ballot that will ask local voters to ban data centers citywide.

Why it matters

If the measure passes, Alhambra could become the second city in California to pass a ban on data centers through a public vote.

In June, Monterey Park became the first city to pass such a ban.

The details

Council members previously voted to establish an official definition of what qualifies as a data center. At an earlier meeting last month, they also added data centers to a list of prohibited facilities in office and industrial zones.

The new ballot measure proposes expanding the prohibition. It would effectively ban data centers in all of the city.

Residents weigh in

Andrew Yip, an Alhambra resident and an organizer with the group SGV Progressive Action, spoke about the importance of ballot language during Monday’s council meeting.

Yip said the name of Monterey Park's June ballot measure — Measure NDC, which stood for "No Data Center" — left some data center opponents unsure about whether to vote yes or no.

“It was very confusing,” Yip said. “I encourage the city to consider a different acronym if possible, maybe BAN, so people know to vote yes on a ban.”

The backstory

Local citizens and groups like No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley and No Data Center in Monterey Park have been organizing to oppose the construction of data centers and other infrastructure that supports them, such as battery energy storage systems.

Plans for a proposed data center in Monterey Park were pulled in March, and the Covina Planning Commission voted down a proposed storage system in June following public input.

What’s next

Alhambra voters will decide the fate of data centers in the city in the general election on Nov. 3. The ban needs a simple majority of support from local voters in order to pass.

How to keep tabs on the Alhambra City Council

The Alhambra City Council tends to meet a few times per month, generally on Mondays. Meetings typically start at 6 p.m.

Here’s how you can follow along:

• Attend in person: The council meets at City Hall, Council Chambers, 111 S. First St., Alhambra.
• Watch the live broadcast.
• Here’s how to submit a comment or contact the council.