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Unfortunately, we live in a time when there is such division that people are shunned solely because of their opposing opinion. I am aware of one person who refuses to even acknowledge my presence because he disagrees with my political views. I doubt he is the only one.  For those regular readers of the Queens Jewish Link, they know that Moshe Hill and I almost never agree. It is so infrequent, that when we do agree, I mention it in my column. I had never met him until the QJL’s 10^th anniversary event last week. I would have not recognized him, since unlike his picture, he does not have a beard. We had a very cordial conversation. We both agreed that in the group picture, we should stand next to each other. We wanted to send the message that individuals can disagree and be able to interact respectfully with each other.

When Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, he gave what at first glance seemed to be an unusual speech. He appeared to be addressing his remarks to high school students, grammar school students, college students, and law school students. However, he had the entire country in mind. It was a brilliant way of giving musar to everyone indirectly. In addition, he said it with a smile and a tone that was pleasant, not condescending or lecturing. We can learn from Justice Breyer how to give constructive criticism.

I was asked not to write a column on politics this week, so I decided to write about economics. Right now, one of the top concerns of many people is the high inflation rate. There are many reasons given for the inflation increase, including the United States Federal Reserve monetary policy. The Federal Reserve has kept the interest rates historically low. In addition, the Federal Reserve has been buying government-backed bonds.

Rabbi Simcha Krauss, who was the rabbi at the Young Israel of Hillcrest until he retired and moved to Israel, died last week. I could write about his scholarship or how he was an important leader in the Jewish community. Instead, I will write about how he had a great impact on my life. Back in 1988, I saw an ad in the Jewish Press about a shiur being given at the Young Israel once a week. I decide to try it out. It was a small group. I was single. After a while, Rabbi Krauss decided that he was going to set me up with single girls from his shul. I couldn’t say no. I ended up marrying the third girl he set me up with. My wife, Beth, said she also felt she could not turn down Rabbi Krauss. There was no guarantee that even if Beth and I had met another time we would have ended up going out. I subsequently learned that we both had been at the same singles Shabbaton before we went out. Neither of us approached the other at the event.

This past week has been a very busy week, with many possible newsworthy stories to discuss. However, after reading Sergey Kadinsky’s letter to the editor to a fellow columnist about writing about the Ukraine situation, I decided to mention it before getting to my main topic.

I must hand it to the progressives. They are doing their best to make sure that the Republican Party will take over the House of Representatives, the Senate, and more state legislatures or governorships. One of the Democrats’ strongest arguments is that Republicans in many states are changing the rules for voting after Trump’s loss to make it harder to vote and take control away from non-partisan election officials and giving it to the legislature. Then the NYC Council passed a law that allowed voting in a municipal election by “a person who is not a United States citizen on the date of the election on which he or she is voting, who is either a lawful permanent resident or authorized to work in the United States, who is a resident of New York City and will have been such a resident for 30 consecutive days or longer by the date of such election.”