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: October 25, 2017

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-A federal judge ruled that the Justice Department cannot prevent an interned undocumented teen from having an abortion. Mike Pence has asked President Trump to issue an executive decree calling for the deportation of undocumented fetuses. * Melania Trump visited a school in Michigan to denounce cyber bullying. When The President […]

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Trump’s Side Story

By Laurie Baron (Melody: “America” from West Side Story) Puerto Rico, You ravaged island , Island of Cat 4 destruction. Bad place to build my casinos. Since most people there are Latinos. * Puerto Rico, You crippled island. Island without any power. Always the hurricanes blowing, Always the devastation growing. And the debts you’re owing,

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire, USA

Humoring the headlines: September 17, 2017

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO−The World Clowns Association has picketed screenings of the movie It carrying signs that read: “Black, white, and red faces matter.” * Both houses of Congress passed a congressional resolution condemning the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia.  President Trump signed it despite his continuing insistence that the anti-racist protesters were equally

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: September 11, 2017

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO−As Hurricane Irma headed toward Florida, President Trump convened a cabinet meeting, but nothing was released about what was discussed.  Russia obtained a transcript and handed it over to Wikileaks for publication.  Here’s what we know. * Cabinet members spent the first thirty minutes of the meeting praising Trump as the

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire