Lawrence Baron

Laurie Baron

Lawrence (Laurie) Baron, now retired, served as the Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University. He served from 1988 to 2006 as director of SDSU’s Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies. He was the founder in 1995 of the Western Jewish Studies Association.

He writes two satire columns for San Diego Jewish World: “Humoring the Headlines” under his byline, and “Hounding the Headlines,” under the byline of his dog Elona.

Books to his credit, available on Amazon, include:

Projecting the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema

The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema

The eclectic anarchism of Erich Muhsam (Men & movements in the history & philosophy of anarchism)

His most recent articles are:

“Making Room for the Jews: The House I Live In (1945),” AJS Perspectives, Summer 2023, 86-88.  

“The Revolt of Job: Salvaging the Lost World of Rural Hungarian Hasidim,” Journal of Jewish Identities, 16:1-2 (January/July 2023), 181-198.

“Persistent Parallels, Resistant Particularities: Holocaust Analogies and Avoidance in Armenian Genocide Centennial Cinema, in Armenian and Jewish Experience between Expulsion and Destruction, ed. Sarah M. Ross and Regina Randhofer (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021), 267-296.

“The Pioneering American Jewish Women Directors from Elaine May to Claudia Weill,” Jews and Gender (Studies in Jewish Civilization), ed. Leonard Greenspoon (W. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2021), 217-243.

Memories of 9/11

Our columnist Laurie Baron contributed this memory of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Twenty years later, do you have recollections of the day terrorists hijacked four planes, destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City, damaged the Pentagon, and crashed into a field in Philadelphia, killing in the process 2,977 people in the air, on the ground, and in the buildings?   Your recollections are welcome! [San Diego Jewish World]

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Lawrence Baron, Mimi Pollack, Sandi Masori

Satire: Take Me to Your Leader

Like most Martians, I live beneath the planet because it is too hot or cold. When I occasionally venture up to the top to catch some sun or see the stars, I have been angered by how littered the landscape has become with metal vehicles from earth which are collecting samples of our soil and rocks or hovering above the surface.  Since most of them bear the insignia of a place called the USA, I’ve decided to lodge a complaint with its leader. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Satire: Hamlet’s Soliloquy in the Age of Covid

To mask or not to mask, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The coughs and dangers of contagious Covid,
Rather than cover nose and mouth, suffocating.    
Or by opposing mandates to die—to infect,  
Tethered to ventilators, bereft of breath,   
The long haul and virulent spikes
That flesh succumbs to, like consumption. … {Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Lawrence Baron, Theatre, Film & Broadcast, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Satire: Space Loses Its Virginity

Virgin Galactic succeeded in launching its owner Richard Branson into a sub-orbit to demonstrate the potential for future space tourism.  Immediately thereafter, many corporations filed papers to open businesses in space to serve the anticipated spate of rich people who already consider themselves out of this world and plan to flaunt their space vacations at cocktail parties.  You can expect to see these advertisements for the following enterprises soon. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire