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.

Humoring the headlines: February 28, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Angered that the Senate passed a “clean” bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, House Republicans proposed a three week funding extension of DHS expecting that ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other Islamic terrorist groups will be defeated by interim but then voted against the measure.  Apparently, John Boehner prefers […]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Horowitz claim of SDSU anti- Semitism disputed

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — As the former director of the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University for 18 years and holder of the Nasatir Chair in Modern Jewish History there for 24 years, I was outraged by the Horowitz Center designation of SDSU as one of the top ten anti-Semitic universities in the United States.

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Lawrence Baron, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education

Humoring the headlines: February 19, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Congressional Republicans refuse to renew funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless President Obama rescinds his Executive Action allowing millions of undocumented aliens to remain in the United States.  In other words to protect our American borders from illegal immigrants, the United States will stop protecting itself from terrorists.

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: February 16, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Canada’s Sun News Network, often referred to as Fox News North, is closing down its operations.  One media analyst explained that since Canada encompasses part of the Arctic Circle, the country doesn’t need any further polarization. * Rand Paul admitted that he is not really a Board Certified Ophthalmologist, but

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: February 12, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Paleontologists have discovered evidence that dinosaurs ate hallucinogenic ergot.   Humans continue to consume strains of the same psychedelic fungus.  This explains why creationists believe humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs. * The University of California Students Association passed a resolution for the UC system to divest itself from

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: February 9, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Vice-President Biden announced he will be out of the country when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Congress.  A growing number of Democratic senators are considering boycotting his speech too prompting ZOA to charge that this is just another manifestation of the BDS movement, Bibi’s Democratic Snub. * Brian Williams

Humoring the headlines: February 9, 2015 Read More »

Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: February 5, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ After weeks of appalling atrocities committed by ISIS and Boko Haram, terrorism experts are looking back nostalgically to the good old days when terrorists only hijacked airplanes and negotiated their release for ransom money or the release of imprisoned compatriots. * Archeologists have discovered that ancient humans ate psychedelic mushrooms.  

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: January 22, 2015

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Dovish political parties opposed to Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies have violated diplomatic protocol by inviting President Obama to address the Knesset.  Just kidding!  Inviting the leader of another country to interfere in the elections and foreign relations of one’s own could never happen─ at least not in Israel. * Worried that

Humoring the headlines: January 22, 2015 Read More »

Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire