A name associated with L.A.’s posh hotels, fancy restaurants and swanky nightclubs – Nazarian – is now attached to an institution of a different sort: UCLA.

As chief of SBE Entertainment Group, Sam Nazarian has developed such properties as the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel and Abbey and MI-6 in West Hollywood.

Now, Nazarian’s parents – Younes, 79, and Soraya, 66 – have donated $5 million through the family foundation to the university’s Israel Studies Program. It has been renamed the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at UCLA.

“What we think students need is a dispassionate and comprehensive understanding of Israel and its neighborhood,” said Nazarian’s sister, Sharon Baradaran, president of the Y & S Nazarian Family Foundation and a UCLA adjunct political science professor who helped found the program in 2005.

The establishment of the Israeli studies program and the multimillion dollar donation both were motivated by the family’s history: After fleeing their native Iran in 1979 during the Islamic revolution, they immigrated to Israel before eventually coming to the states.

As many as 1,000 students take courses through the program each year. The endowment will allow the center – unique on the West Coast and among only three in the nation – to expand its offerings, including an undergraduate minor in Israel studies and sponsoring more graduate and post-doctorate work.

“As the Middle East continues to dominate U.S. foreign policy and international news the more important it is for our future generations to understand the dynamics of what is at stake,” Baradaran said.