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.
By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Responding to a petition submitted to the “We the People” website, President Obama called for banning coercive conversion therapy for minors from the LGBT community. Although GOP presidential hopeful (or some may say hopeless) Ben Carson asserted that the resort to conversion therapy should be a matter decided by a […]
Humoring the headlines: April 9, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ In an interview he gave during his trip to Israel, John Boehner admitted, “I wouldn’t have believed that I would be involved in as much foreign policy as I am today. And it certainly isn’t by choice. It’s just that the world is on fire.” Apparently Boehner hadn’t spoken to
Humoring the headlines: April 3, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which permits business owners to discriminate against any customer whose lifestyle offends their religious sensibilities. Although critics believe the law sanctions discrimination against the LGBT community, it already is having unintended consequences with Christian Scientists barring doctors from reading rooms,
Humoring the headlines: March 30, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ A Knesset member from the Zionist Union has called for the dismissal of Ron Dermer, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States who arranged for Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, as a first-step to improve American-Israeli relations. A Knesset member from the Likud Party reacted by calling for the impeachment of
Humoring the headlines: March 27, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Angered by Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and late campaign renunciation of support for the Two State solution, President Obama waited until two days after the Israeli election to phone the Prime Minister to congratulate him on his victory. To add insult to injury, it was a collect call. *
Humoring the Headlines” March 23, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire“Israeli Election Roundup” By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ It’s March Madness time in Israel. Pundits are crunching numbers and filling out brackets, trying to figure out what the composition of the next Israeli coalition government will be. * Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Likud had a “great victory.” This bolsters his claim that he speaks for
Humoring the headlines: March 18, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Confident that the Senate possesses the constitutional power to warn Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei that it could reject any nuclear agreement signed by President Obama, the forty-seven Republicans who signed the letter are now planning to open embassies in countries around the world. * During a campaign speech in New
Humoring the headlines: March 16, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Reports have surfaced that Edward Snowden is negotiating with Federal authorities to return to the United States if two of his demands can be met: 1) he will only be charged with hacking instead of espionage; 2) he can retain the same lawyer who got General David Petraeus such a
Humoring the headlines: March 12, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — You don’t have to be Marcel Proust to recognize the association between the aroma of a Jewish deli and memory. It still happens every time I enter DZ Akins. For me, the intermingling of the scents of fresh challah, chicken soup, chopped liver, corned beef, flanken, grilled onions, lox,
The Wandering Review: ‘Deli Man’ Read More »
Lawrence Baron, San Diego CountyBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ President Obama chided Americans for having the lowest voter participation rate among Western nations. Fox News cited this as another instance of how he doesn’t love America and pointed to the high audience voting rate for American Idol to disprove his charge. * Boko Haram pledged allegiance to ISIS prompting
Humoring the headlines: March 9, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Based on its investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, the Department of Justice concluded that Ferguson’s police exhibited a pattern of racism against African Americans in arrests, fining, car and pedestrian stops, ticketing, and the use of force and dogs. In an addendum the DOJ revealed that the highest ranking
Humoring the headlines; March 6, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ The Horowitz Freedom Center has identified several more universities where anti-Semitism is so rampant that pogroms have occurred there. When the story was checked out, it was discovered that student theatre ensembles on each of these campuses had been performing Fiddler on the Roof. * ISIS issued a threat against
Humoring the headlines: March 3, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — Raphael Lemkin is probably the most influential figure of the Twentieth Century not widely recognized by posterity. Born in 1900 in a Polish village located in the Russian Empire, he had witnessed pogroms when he was growing up. Originally studying linguistics, he eventually became a lawyer. In the 1920s
The Wandering Review: ‘Watchers of the Sky’ Read More »
Jewish History, Lawrence BaronBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem presents a Kafkaesque vision of the divorce process for Jewish women in Israel. Viviane, soulfully played by the film’s co-director Ronit Elkabetz, seeks to get out of an unhappy marriage, but her husband Elisha, played by the Armenian actor Simon Abkarian, won’t consent
The Wandering Review: ‘Gett’; Read More »
Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron