Szifra Birke is a personal and professional connector, whether bringing people together to aid new Americans or to volunteer at a new nonprofit. But she has never been satisfied with knowing people casually. Her career choices include Psychotherapist and Executive Leadership Coach. She is the author of Together We Heal about group therapy. An avid exerciser, Szifra spent 35 years off bikes before a tandem bike seduced her back on. Once she was pedaling, the habit stuck. Besides her love of an active lifestyle, she came to the new relationship with two adolescent sons, a stepdaughter, and a love of marketing and public relations. Offered the captaincy of the tandem, she demurred with a "Not on my life!" Her freedom from watching "every little thing in the road" allows her to enthusiastically acknowledge all drivers, walkers, and porch sitters. She also strives to keep the conversation interesting and rolling along.

Influenced by her parents' Holocaust experience and inspired by their tenacity, Szifra has been personally and professionally involved with Holocaust survivors and their families since 1973 while a graduate student at Purdue. Szifra co-produced a documentary about her outrageous dad, her beloved mom, and their quirky store. It can be viewed at: BrowsingThroughBirkes.com.

For the past twenty years, she has mentored and assisted immigrants and refugees, primarily from Southeast Asia and Africa. She loves yoga, pickleball and walking with friends and her pup Kobi. Her life is far richer because it includes her four granddaughters Rachel, Samantha, Paige and Adeline, and her six grandnieces and grandnephews – Sierra, Charlie, Theo, Kaiah, Max and Taizen.