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, Ph.D For 2022 I wish: That polarization will be restricted to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. That inflation will be restricted to grading and résumés. That someday the only occasions when masks will be worn are costume parties, Halloween, and operations. That a COVID variant develops that kills all other COVID variants. […]
Satire: New Year’s Wishes Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireOn the anniversary of the insurrection he incited, Donald Trump instructs a mob to storm the Supreme Court to prevent the transfer of his papers to the January 6 Commission. No charges are filed against them because justice is blind, but only in the right eye. … [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: New Year’s Devolutions Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireCome Sinema and Manchin
Please heed the call
Don’t block Build Back Better
And cause Biden’s downfall.
Dems will lose midterms
If it gets stalled…. {Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: ‘The Trump is Still Conspiring’ Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USAAs the end of the year nears, the studios and streaming services release movies they hope will be nominated for Oscars and other film awards. Here’s a list of some of the leading contenders. [Satire by Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: Movies We’d Like to See Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireHanukkah, Oh, Hanukkah,
Things are getting better.
Last year our party
Was a super spreader. … [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Parody: A Happy Hanukkah Read More »
Jewish Religion, Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireThe World Health Organization employs Greek letters instead of people’s names or places to label new variants of Covid-19. It does so to avoid derogatory terms like the ones coined by Donald Trump who called Covid the China virus and the Kung Flu. Frankly, I wish the WHO had retaliated against him and dubbed Covid Donald’s Disease [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: A Covid Variant By Any Other Name Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Science, Medicine, & Education, Trivia, Humor & SatireI shot the vandals, when I made myself a deputy.
I shot the vandals, shield property from jeopardy.
Walking through Kenosha town
Pointing my rifle all around. … [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: ‘I Shot the Vandals’ Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireOver the past 50 years, my wife Bonnie and I have shared our homes with six cats. The first was a beautiful seal point Siamese paradoxically named Whitey bequeathed to us by friends intent on stopping their baby from playing in her litter box. In one of her former lives she must have been a dog. She fetched balled up pieces of paper, followed us around like a shadow, and emitted piercing yowls. Siamese are lookers, not singers! [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Mercury Baron: Our Last Cat (For Now) Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Lifestyles, San Diego County, The World We Share
While sitting and reading a book about three weeks ago, I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and looked down to see a golf ball size bulge protruding out of it. Since I had a hernia 25 years ago, I immediately thought it had recurred, though my cinematic imagination made me fear it was the larval form of the creature from Alien beginning to erupt through my skin and scamper around my house. My quandary was whether to go to urgent care or contact Segourney Weaver. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Humoring the Hernia Read More »
Lawrence Baron, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, Trivia, Humor & SatireAlthough many countries at the COP26 Climate Summit concur that the world must address the threat posed by global warming, none seem willing to immediately adopt radical measures to deal with it sufficiently.
At the COP-26 (Conspiracy of Polluters), big corporations have proposed their own solutions. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: Corporate Industry to the Rescue Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBefore going to Europe, President Biden summoned key Democrats to play poker in the hope it would pave the way for a resolution of their stalemate on his Build Back Better Plan. [Satire by Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: A Game of Political Poker Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire“Teachers in a Texas school district were told last week that a new state law requiring them to present multiple perspectives about “widely debated and currently controversial” issues meant they needed to make “opposing” views on the Holocaust available to students.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 10/14/2021 [Laurie Baron, Ph.D}
Satire: Both Sides Now Read More »
International, Jewish History, Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USALast week President Biden announced that today would be Indigenous Peoples Day to offset the deleterious impact Christopher Columbus’ voyages had on Native Americans. Of course, they already memorialized Columbus Day as Genocide Genesis Day. If this serves as a precedent for renaming other holidays to reflect what they stand for, then expect Biden make the following announcements in the future: [Laurie Baron, Ph.d]
Satire: Renaming Holidays Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireLesson 1: The Biblical Origins of Racial Hierarchy
Adam and Eve were White. The mark of Cain was that he was turned Black for killing his brother Abel. The son of Noah was Ham. His son was Black and immigrated to Ethiopia. From that time on the only thing Africa exported was nubile temptresses like the Queen of Sheba. Jesus was White and his followers founded a new religion to dissociate themselves from their other Jewish contemporaries who had become so tanned from the bright Middle Eastern sun that they identified with Blacks and still do until today. [Laurie Baron, Ph.D]
Satire: Lesson Plans for ‘Uncritical’ Race Theory Curriculum Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire