Photo by Jonas Hansel This video is related to a posting on Globe Tribune.Info It is posted here to avoid its getting deleted from You Tube. It deals with the place of Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in Islam. Because of reports that the video is offensive to Mulslims, I screened it with extreme sensitivity to the issue of incitement. Read More »

Both Magdeburgerjoe.com and Rudistettner.com have been in existence since January of 2008. Both sites have followed an eclectic path, poth poliically and topically. The fact that both names are easily misspelled, as well as other technical issues have limited the growth of both sites. Read More »

      Youtube has been repeatedly taking down this video, in which a bully finds out that it is payback time. I am posting it here, where it will be free from Youtube censorshipGlobeTribune article posted on rudistettner.com of thewinterriders. Read More »

The former rabbi of my shul, Rabbi Laufer, told a story of his boyhood in Uzbekistan.  He teaches a class every week to a Bukharian congregation of orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. (Bukharians speak a dialect of Persian, not Yiddish.) In addition, he makes financial contributions to the upkeep of their synagogue. Read More »

It is interesting to contrast President Obama’s actions towards Egypt during its protests with his tepid support of protesters in Iran. Towards the end of Hosni Mubarak’s time in office, President Obama made it abundantly clear that he wanted Mubarak to step down. Read More »

A big source of opposition to state tuition vouchers comes from unions representing public school teachers. From New Jersey to Wisconsin, any challenge to benefits and pay received by teachers is countered by a media blitz of opposition.Where do public school teachers send their kids? The answer might surprise you. Read More »

Right now there is a division in the broadcast media into spheres of influence. Television news, outside of Fox News is mostly well left of centre. Talk radio on the other hand is a medium in which the right has an upper hand.There is one area that is solidly to the left, and that is National Public Radio. Read More »

     What does it take to make a country last? On one side of the Aisle, you have France, Italy and Germany, which are all composed of regions with distinct identities and in some cases distinct languages. France has Alsatian, Provencal, Breton and Corsican, to name a few local languages. Read More »

    Three scenarios of classroom disorder flashed through my mind today. All were very different, yet shared a common denominator.   The first location is the English class in a yeshiva. Not all English classes in Yeshiva are disorderly. Some yeshiva administrators have high behavioral and academic expectations. Read More »

There is a panhandler who comes to my morning minyan who looks to be well past the age of retirement. He speaks a beautiful Yiddish with a slight slavic accent, the kind of Yiddish that was not learned in America. Rather than work the crowd, he lingers in shul. Read More »

Particularly among crime victims and their families, the issue of prison can evoke a visceral response. The desire to put together a forbidding punitive environment for society’s malefactors is a compelling drive for many. Read More »

Douglas M. Kelley was given an unusual assignment for any psychiatrist, one in which he had to balance his role as an employee of the US government and a doctor to the top Nazi war criminal in custody. Read More »

     English stands apart among the major western languages, along with French because of its maddening departures from phonetic spelling. The silent “e” at the end of so many letters, silent “gh”, “ph” that sounds like the letter “f” are among the features that make English spelling daunting to someone who is not a native speaker. Read More »

YouTube provides a forum to millions of people from around the world for everything from opinion to instruction, from entertainment to family videos. Understandably, they need a mechanism in place to remove material that is offensive, indecent or infringes upon copyright law. A lot of people vent their anger at each other. Read More »

 At a Jewish wedding, the ceremony is always concluded by the breaking of a wine glass, traditionally under the foot of the groom. The most common explanation for this is to remind those assembled at the wedding that even the times of our greatest joy are diminished by the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. Read More »

      New Yorkers are seriously concerned about a proposed “Crash Tax” that will be levied effective July 1st in New York City. Under the measure anyone involved in a crash on the city streets can be sent a bill for emergency services. The Wall Street Journal describes the measure as follows. Read More »

    I have spent the last couple of days focusing on attempting to launch my new news site, Globe Tribune.Info. At the last minute, I managed to stop a launch of the site which would have been disastrously inappropriate to my needs. In the long run, it will save me money, but I did pay a cancellation fee. Read More »

  The part of France known as Brittany fascinates me. A significant number of people in Brittany speak Breton, which belongs to the Celtic family of languages, along with Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The language is continuing to be passed on, thankfully to a younger generation. Read More »

      The latest news about Gershon Kranczer, 58,is not encouraging. According to the Daily News , Kranczer and his 20 year old son have fled to Israel on the heels of allegations that Kranczer has sexually abused four of his daughters, ranging in age from 8 to 20. Read More »

     It is hard to look at the Chanuka lights without thinking of people. illuminated by souls, anchored to the wick of a body and yet drawn upward in a perpetual state of tension. “Nishmas adam, ner Hashem”. The soul of man is the candle of G-d. Looking at the Chanuka candles draws me to such thoughts.Part of my ancestry is Hungarian. Read More »