Blanche Comras Rifkin's Biography

Blanche Comras Rifkin was born in her parents Minnie and Joseph Koenigsbergs’ home on Stebbins Avenue in the Bronx on March 18, 1916. She began her community service as a girl scout, and for over 40 years, Blanche ably served as the main support staff at the Bronx Office of New York State’s Mental Hygiene Legal Service until her retirement in 2010, where her personality and vast networking skills provided incalculable benefits to the MHLS staff and the clients they served.

From 1980 up until her passing on December 31, 2015 at age 99, she was an active member of Community Board 11, also serving on the Einstein and Jacobi Medical Center Advisory Boards. She was a member of the Pelham Parkway Citizens Council, P.S. 105 Parents Association, the Ruth Kurzon Group for Handicap Children, and she was on the boards of the Pelham Parkway Jewish Center, National Council of Jewish Women, Bronx House (for forty-five years) and UJA-Federation.

“Having worked for the Bronx House for thirty-four years, I,” said Bronx House CFO Howie Martin in 2018, “can honestly say that Blanche was the most remarkable woman I have ever met in my lifetime. Congressmen, Assemblymen, Senators and Borough Presidents have all referred to Blanche as ‘Mrs. Pelham Parkway,’ an honor earned throughout her more than sixty years of dedicated service to the community.”

Blanche was a fiercely proud mother of two children, two grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.