It’s Tuesday morning and Trudy Berlin sits in front of a laptop, a stack of books, loose papers and newspaper clippings piled next to her. It’s go time.
At 10 a.m. sharp, the 98-year-old enters a Zoom meeting, where an audience of 50 women eagerly await her. She’s known to some as the “Oprah” of senior citizens at the Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center in Boca Raton, Fla. She’s older than Oprah Winfrey, and Jewish, and some other differences, too — but you get the picture.
“Good morning, everyone. We have lots to discuss. But tell me first how all of you are,” Berlin says, offering her usual opening remarks to a sea of Zoom boxes staring back at her from a flat-screen TV on the wall above her.
So begins a conversation about politics and other news of the day, as well as deep deliberations on various personal quandaries. They lament lost spouses and hash out the recent election and related controversies. All topics are covered. Sometimes things get heated, but Berlin will bring down the temperature.
“Life is so deadly serious that you can’t treat it that way,” says Berlin, who is wearing a bold scarlet top with sequins, and often ties on a brightly colored scarf. “You have to lighten it up...
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