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: March 20, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-The Israeli Knesset approved a first reading of a law to sanctioning conversions performed by local rabbis instead of keeping them subject only to rabbis and courts requiring conversions meet Orthodox criteria. The Israeli Chief Rabbis condemned the law noting ““Promoting a law of this type without broad agreement is liable

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: February 24, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―The Sochi Winter Olympics ended Sunday.  Russia won the most medals, but lost a valuable ally. In a related story, Russia accused the new interim Ukrainian government of using “terrorist methods” to intimidate the Russian speaking minority in the Ukraine. Discerning something familiar in the Russian condemnation, fact checkers found the

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: February 20, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―The demonstrations in the Ukraine have tarnished the image of a state content with being heavily dependent on Russia.  Internal memos reveal that the Ukraine expected to easily quell the protests and initially dismissed it as a “pussy riot.”  Embarrassed that much of Kiev’s Independence Square has been reduced to ash

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: February 10, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―Spectators were dazzled by the pyrotechnics, luminescent colors, and special effects of the opening ceremony at the Sochi Winter Olympics.  Although Russia claimed it cost a fortune to produce and featured thousands of Russians, conspiracy theorists suspect it was merely a holographic projection of scenes from Avatar and Tron. * Under

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the Headlines: February 6, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―Archeologists have discovered a network of prehistoric limestone dwellings under Miami Beach.  While some of them speculate that the 2,000 year old structures were inhabited by the Tequesta Indians; others believe that they were originally built by one of the lost tribes of Israel because an inscription found in one of

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: February 4, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO-Since Hollywood loves sequels to successful movies and stories “ripped from the headlines,” production has begun on films that mix these genres.  Here are some scripts currently under consideration. American Tussle-An American diplomat futilely tries to convince obstinate Israeli and Palestinian leaders that making peace is better than descending into an

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire

Humoring the headlines: January 31, 2014

By Laurie Baron SAN DIEGO―Venture capitalist Thomas Perkins apologized for drawing a parallel between the “progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich” and “Nazi Germany’s war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews.” …This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant “progressive”

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Lawrence Baron, Trivia, Humor & Satire