Esther Wallace, my beloved Grandmother who all but raised me, died this morning - July 12th, 2011. May her soul join all of Israel in Jerusalem..
Devastating Fire on Simchas Torah takes life of young Yeshiva Boy and destroys family near Avenue P and 12th Street
Second Article on this tragic loss of an 8 year old boy in Flatbush
Reb Yaakov and his wife heard their children screaming and ran into the home to try to pull out their six children. Mrs. Krasny attempted to soothe her terrified children, holding the hand of her youngest, Miriam, repeating, .Mommy.s here with you..
Reb Yaakov heroically ran into the burning home multiple times and rescued five of his children, but tragically couldn.t reach his 8-year-old son, Avigdor, trying to escape the flames through a third-floor window.
Please give to help help this family: there is no greater Mitzvot then to help this family in dire need. Please have compasion for this family and help them both short term and long term.
Rabbi Balkany was jailed today due to activities involving what I can only describe as nearly heroic efforts to provide a Jewish Education to every needy child. The issues he tackled and the problems he faced are problems the entire Jewish Community face, yet just ignor. There is something very wrong about how we fund Jewish Education in the US, and we all share whatever guilt Rabbi Balkany was proven guilty of in the courtroom. I personally will be fasting on Tuesday out of an act of Tchuvia.
With a long NY heritage this is a photo of the family just before coming to America.
Post Family from 1905 - Ruben's Great Grandmother Rose Post (later Rose Barcan) is the second from the left on the top row
There is also the Safir side of the family. Many of the Safir's are spread far and wide in the country, even close relatives who He's never met on my father's side of the family. If your related to Morris Safir or Nathan (Emile) Safir email me and He'll share with you some decent lost photos. And we can also take.
There are also some Ginsberg's, Barcan's, and Postofsky's floating around the family tree. Email if interested.
His Children's names are:
Health Care Reform must be about controlling COSTS
It is a mistake to think this is a left/right issue. The new bill is not a left leaning bill. Nor is it a right leaning law. It is pure PORK and gives away the public interest to private parties.
Museum Photographs and Links
BROOKLYN GETS IT AGAIN FROM CITY
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That being said the love of Ruben's life is still his 92 year old Granmother, Esther Wallace, who we couldn't say enough about. Her 90th Birthday is January, 2007. This is by far the most beautiful women on earth, and she makes great oatmeal.
If your ever lucky enough to be around her kitchen table at 7AM, your in for a once in a life experience. She is by far the most insightful, intelligent conversationalist I've ever met, and has 90 years of archives to which she can exploit as a teacher, friend and confident. Here is a movie of Esther's Museum.
It it you can get the feel for her compasionate charm and loving touch. About half way through, you'll hear a frank, unflinching, conversation about her age and death. At the end she pulls out
a surprise. There is a companion movie as well, which covers more of her personal collection.
Here is a small Gallery of Esther's Art Collection
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Ruben has a fettish with computers. A life long programmer, he began web design in 1995
for his own website the now defunct Jewish Billboard.
He then began writing for
Along the way he help many Brooklyn based small businesses get their first feet on the web. Recalling back to those days, it was a very hard sell to get businesses to invest in internet presense. How the times have changed.
He helped businesses such are Medical Arts Chemist, Brauners Bakery, Judaica Tressures, Rosenzweig and Maffia, and TMM.NET get themselves up and running on the net.
There contines to be a lot of Brooklyn material on this site, perhaps the greatest repository on the net. One needs
to have the patients to walk through the galleries of photo's, texts and movies. There is a near complete
documentation of Williamsburg in the photo directories.
Cobble Hill Brooklyn on Bastille Day July 2007
The New Developing Coney Island Web Site
By the way, our current Mayor's Office telephone number is:
Mayor Bloomberg's Phone Number Is 212-772-1081
I tell you this because he's not taking phone calls any more.
These day, Ruben is mostly a professional Pharmacist. However, he remains active in a number of important political and educational organizations. He founded NYFairUse, and later had to change its name to the NY Assocation of Copyright Stakeholders. He founded NYLXS, still one of the most important Free Software organizaions in the nation. He teachs computer programming, once for the New School and then for NYLXS. He has particular expertise in Perl, C and GNU/Linux.
Occasionally he gets to take in a Pharmacy Conference in San Francisco. And when he does he gets a chance to combine Pharmacy activities with Computer Activities.
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| Richard Stallman and Friends at Rick Moen's House in the Bay Area |
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| Shoshana Safir testing the One Laptop Per Child Prototype. |
Ruben's Quotes that others have Quoted
Columbian Commemorative
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The Library of Congress has put together this incredibile collection of color photographs the earliest color photographs that I'm aware of, which show Russia just before the revolution. What is ironic about this is that the technology used to create these photos required projection and the film materials were preserved, even though that it is completely customized technology because it wasn't protected by any copyright and had the ability to be preserved. Today, the it will be impossible to preserve anything as historically important as these works because the restrictions that copyright holders can put on any work destroy the publics right to preserve such works. In addition, because Copyright is now so long, anything done today could not be displayed even 100 years into the future. This work escaped copyright control mostly do to the fact that its owners, the Russian Tzars, were shot dead. With the death of the VCR and the Video Tape this past month, how can the history of the last 20 years be preserved? |
This is a wonderful project that shows just what we could do if Congress finally wised up and ended the blockade of the Digital Revolution by a few special interests and the DMCA. See The Art of Pitching from 1887.
These videos, which very unforunately are wmv files are video on demand and together compose the best lecture series to be found in any published form. Weber and the Met prove how theusage of information can enlighten and add depth of understanding to the public at large. Weber starts with pre-history and goes well beyond the who where and whats, but exposes how human technology affects society continually through history, from the beginning of writing to the era of video and eletronics. For those who use Free Software, try mplayer http://www.mplayerhq.hu for playback. The streams exist at mms://cate-annenberg.cate.buffalo.edu/annenberg/Western_Tradition_03.wmv and so forth in numeric order.
Many times while teaching Ruben Safir has tried to describe our the digital revolution is changing the society we live in at rate of change greater than any time since the formation of writing and then the advent of modern print in the 1500's. Weber makes this much clearer and this series should be mandatory for all politicians and 'bloggers'.
Learn about the industry and enjoy!.
Free Stories! The Devil and Tom Walker A story of a man and his wife.
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Vornado would replace the Hotel Pennsylvania at 15 Penn Plaza (7th Ave and 33rd St.) with what would be the city's third-tallest building. The proposal requires approval of both the Planning Commission and the City Council. Testifying at the commission hearing, Tri-Stater's Kate Slevin said that “the proposed office tower's proximity to Penn Station makes it an excellent location choice. There is no better place to encourage development than above transit facilities that provide easy access to Amtrak, NJ Transit, LIRR, PATH, and fourteen subway lines."
