By Alan Levenson
SAN DIEGO — Laurie Baron founded the Western Jewish Studies Association (WJSA) in 1995 as a protest against the Association of Jewish Studies holding its annual conferences the week before Christmas in frigid Boston during its first three decades.
To commemorate its 30th anniversary, the Western Jewish Studies Association conference convened March 16-17th in San Diego at the Dana Hotel on Mission Bay. Although the WJSA rotates the locations of its annual conferences, this was the fourth time San Diego hosted one. The first conference was held at the Town and Country Hotel. The conference was co-sponsored by the Association for Jewish Studies, the Jewish Studies Programs at SDSU and UCSD, and the Murray Galinson San Diego-Israel Initiative.
Professor Lawrence (Laurie) Baron has been its President for every one of those 30 years. As he puts it, “The WJSA doesn’t have term limits, only life sentences.” If put to a vote, conference participants would have rejected Laurie’s contention that, “No one over 77 should be president of anything.” This Sunday’s banquet morphed into lovefest mode, as long-time colleagues praised Baron’s contributions to film studies, Holocaust studies, Western Jewish history and political satire, something readers of San Diego Jewish World are familiar with.
Baron served as Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University from 1988 until 2012 and the first full-time director of its Jewish Studies Program from 1988-2006. During that period, he published and spoke unceasingly for academic and public audiences. Arguably, even more important than his scholarly contributions are Baron’s mentorship of individual students, now often colleagues, and of the association and conference itself, which has enhanced the collegial and scholarly lives of its regular attendees
I started coming to these conferences 15 years ago when I became the Schusterman/Josey Professor at the University of Oklahoma and needed to find some regional pals; I did. The OU Schusterman Center was honored to host this conference in 2022 when the WJSA resumed face-to-face meetings after Covid.
This year’s conference of 19 panels attended by 65 scholars, 13 of whom were from other countries like Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, and Israel. This testified to the appeal of a conference which remains manageable and heimish, a place where senior scholars can debut new material and graduate students can try out theirs before a friendly audience, not always the case at national conferences. The age range, ethnicities, observance levels of the attendees were considerable; interestingly enough, so were the political views.
Panel topics were equally diverse ranging from the study of Biblical figures, Rabbinic law, Israeli science fiction, modern Jewish literature, American, Argentine, and European Jewish history, and the Holocaust. The final session featured a lively roundtable discussion on international reactions to 10/7 and the Gaza War.
Although Baron composed a new song for his own departure and played guitar too, semi old-timers like me most appreciate the anthem he wrote for the association and sang to the tune of the Beatles, “In My Life.”
There are cities in December
Where the AJS still convenes.
Much too cold and inconvenient,
Far away from temperate scenes.
Smart Jews flee the North in winter
Go South or West to warmer climes.
And the scholars in these regions
Prefer to meet at better times.
Of all places and all seasons
These are the ones which suit me best.
They’re the autumns in mid-country
And the springtime in the West.
Though I’ll never lose connections
With AJS friends from yesterday,
It’s closer and more haimisch
At the WJSA.
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Professor Levenson holds the Schusterman/Josey Chair in Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma and has written extensively on the Jewish experience for both scholarly and popular audiences.