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─ Marco Rubio’s new campaign ad condemns Obama’s Nuclear Deal with Iran and concludes with a mushroom-shaped cloud explosion. It is unclear whether this image alludes to the dire consequences of the Iranian deal or to Rubio’s chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination. * A new Gallup poll indicates that […]
Humoring the headlines: July 16, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Donald Trump claimed that “corrupt Mexican officials obviously let” drug cartel kingpin El Chapo” escape through an elaborate mile long tunnel. Now Trump faces a dilemma: he either must build his wall between the Mexican-American border both upward and downward or force Mexico to delegate the administration of prison tunnels
Humoring the headlines: July 13, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─Latinos now outnumber non-Hispanic whites in California. Based on that statistic, all the television news networks project that any Republican candidate but Donald Trump will win the state’s presidential primary next June. * The talent agency that handled Bill Cosby has dropped him. All of his concerts have been cancelled. On
Humoring the headlines: July 9, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Greeks decisively defeated the referendum to accept the European Union’s terms for repaying their country’s debt. Now that the future of whether Greece will keep the Euro as its currency is uncertain, some Greek politicians have proposed Drachmonian measures. * Holy water drawn from the Jordan River was used to
Humoring the headlines: July 6, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire
SAN DIEGO (SDJW)—San Diego Jewish World acknowledges and thanks those writers whose bylines and photo credit lines appeared during the month of June and the first few days of July on its website. They included: David Amos Stephen Hazan Arnoff Laurie Baron David Bedein Edwin Black Dan Bloom Shoshana Bryen Stephen Bryen Garry Fabian Donald
SDJW thanks June, early July contributors Read More »
Barry Shaw, Donald H. Harrison, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Edwin Black, Eileen Wingard, Eric George Tauber, Eva Trieger, Fred Reiss, EdD, Ira Sharkansky, Lawrence Baron, Mark D. Zimmerman, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Michael Ordman, Mimi Pollack, Natasha Josefowitz, Sheryl Rowling, Shor M. Masori, Shoshana Bryen, Steve KramerBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ The Supreme Court ruled that the drug Midazolam can be used to render condemned killers comatose even though there is evidence that those who have received it felt pain during the remainder of their executions. This opens the possibility for states that cannot afford Midazolam to administer Ambien even though
Humoring the Headlines: July 3, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ The Supreme Court struck down EPA regulations of toxic emissions from coal burning power plants as part of its series of rulings to create a post-glacial society. * Bobby Jindal ordered Louisiana state agencies not to recognize same sex marriages and posted a picture of his face superimposed over that
Humoring the headlines: June 29, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ The Oxford English Dictionary added a new definition for the word “belated:” “The interval between the end of the Civil War, 90 years of Jim Crow Laws, and 50 years of resisting Civil Rights legislation, and the removal of Confederate flag from the flags and license plates of states in
Humoring the Headlines: June 26, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Mike Huckabee suggested that arming the members of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston would have prevented the murder of nine of its members. In other words the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is pistol packing pastors and worshippers with weapons. * The police are
Humoring the headlines: June 22, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireEditor’s Note: Lawrence “Laurie” Baron usually writes the “Humoring the Headlines” column, but in the wake of the racist murders in Charleston, South Carolina, he preferred to address this far more serious topic. By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ I find little to humor about this week’s main headline, the murder of 9 African-Americans at a bible study
Sidebars to the Charleston tragedy Read More »
Lawrence Baron, USABy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ In the wake of major hacking incidents of government computers, Hillary Clinton is now bragging about how much foresight she had to put her State Department emails on a private server. * Rachel Dolezal resigned from being president of the NAACP’s Spokane Chapter after it was revealed that she really
Humoring the headlines: June 16, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Cognizant of the pushback Fox News has encountered for limiting participation in the first Republican presidential debate to the ten leading candidates in national polls, MTV plans to televise a musical chairs competition among the Republican candidates in lieu of a debate. In a related story The Learning Channel is
Humoring the headlines: June 13, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireI can’t make this stuff up By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO — After Rick Perry promised he would unite rather than divide Americans if he were President, he left the stage to the accompaniment of his campaign song which contains the following lyric: “Shotgun toter/Republican voter/Rick Perry supporter/Let’s protect our border/To hell with anyone who
Humoring the Headlines: June 5, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & SatireBy Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO─ Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that “all of Israel is behind the Cavaliers” in the NBA championship series because its coach David Blatt is an Israeli American. He added that he’s a big fan of the team’s Jewish superstar L’Chaim James. * Republican presidential hopefuls are attending an “economic summit” at
Humoring the headlines: June 3, 2015 Read More »
Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire