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: 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

The Wandering Review: ‘Walking with the Enemy’

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-Walking with the Enemy belongs to a cycle of recent movies like Black Book, Army of Crime, Defiance, Inglourious Basterds, and Süskind which portray Jews actively resisting the Holocaust.  With the exception of Tarantino’s counterfactual picture, these films are docudramas inspired by real events.  Walking with the Enemy chronicles the German

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Jewish History, Lawrence Baron

Humoring the Headlines; April 24, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-Georgia’s governor signed the “Guns Everywhere Law” which allows people with concealed weapons permits to bring guns into airports, bars, churches, schools, government buildings and parts of airports.  Although he heralded it as a victory for Second Amendment rights, Catholic Priests have expressed concern that their altar boys will be packing

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire