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.

The Wandering Review: The Dance of Reality

By Laurie Baron After establishing a reputation as an actor and director in avant-garde theatre, the Chilean-born Alejandro Jodorowsky burst onto the cinematic scene in 1970 with his surrealistic western El Topo. Since it prefigures the preoccupations of his subsequent films including The Dance of Reality, let me summarize its plot. A gunfighter abandons his […]

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International, Lawrence Baron

Baron lectures tonight on ‘Jews and Baseball’

SAN DIEGO (SDJW) — San Diego Jewish World‘s movie reviewer and humor columnist, Lawrence Baron, a professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University, will deliver three summer lectures on Jewish movies  at Temple Emanu-El, 6299 Capril Drive, with the first coming at 7 p.m. tonight (Saturday, June 21), and the others scheduled on

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Lawrence Baron, San Diego County, Sports & Competitions

Humoring the headlines: June 19, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―The United States captured Abu Khattala, the alleged leader of the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi. Although the Obama administration plans to try him in a federal court, many Republicans advocate sending him to Guantanamo. After all, nothing epitomizes American justice better than a military commission held in secret

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: June 13, 2014

  By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―A California Superior Court ruled that tenure for public school teachers is illegal because it denies students access to quality education by guaranteeing tenured teachers their positions despite their teaching records. Will federal judges recuse themselves from hearing subsequent appeals of the case because they all hold lifetime appointments? *

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: May 30, 2014

  By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―Eric Shinseki tendered his resignation after weeks of revelations about lengthy waits for appointments at VA hospitals for returning veterans, some of whom died before they could be seen. The problem was discovered when insurance actuarial tables revealed that the mortality rate for injured soldiers in Afghanistan was lower than for

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: May 23, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee signed legislation authorizing the use of the electric chair if lethal injections are not available for implementing the death sentence.  He assured critics of electrocution that the procedure will be administered in a progressive manner employing green energy sources and wireless technology and permitting the condemned

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: May 20, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-The United States Department of Justice has caught five Chinese officials of hacking into the computer sites of five American incorporations.  Further investigations have revealed that they are also eavesdropping on internet publications like The San Diego Jewish … 我们正在听. * The Air Force has readied planes in case the State

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire