Recently, close to 250 women met at Cipriani 23 for the second annual Women Against MS Luncheon, presented by the New York City chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Special guests for the event included, from left to right, authors Abigail Thomas and Immaculee Ilibagiza, Self editor-in-chief Lucy Danziger, and authors and identical twin sister adoptees Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein. (After the luncheon, they all met in the lobby for a picture with Ruth Brenner, the head of the NYC chapter.)
During the event, Danziger introduced each of the authors, who spoke with passion about the life stories shared in their memoirs; Ilibagiza’s account of narrowly surviving the genocidal massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda moved the crowd to a hushed silence. But there was room for humor, too: “Elyse likes the window seat and I like the aisle,” Bernstein said of the tour to promote Identical Strangers, “so we work well together.”