From the moment she was born, Iris stunned everyone. She was born in central Philadelphia,  four years after the end of World War I to Jewish immigrants from a small village in Western Russia. She grew up during the Great Depression in and out of foster care, graduated college while raising three boys, and drove to Washington to see Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his “I Have a Dream”speech. 

Iris grew up in Philadelphia with four brothers and knew she had to fight to make her voice heard. She learned to dance between the sexist barriers that she faced, whilst maintaining her femininity. At a party where a family friend groped her to prove “how uptight Jewish women were,” she was forced to hold her cool while everyone else laughed. Iris got her Ph.D. in counseling, even though she had grown up running from landlords in the middle of the night because her family didn’t have the money to pay rent. Her passion for politics radiated throughout her life as she attended Vietnam War protests and watched as Barack Obama was inaugurated; she even requested her mail-in ballot at age 99, days after having a stroke. 

Though her struggles were great, she never ceased to allow these large obstacles to influence her identity. Iris surprised everyone, she grew and thrived in a desolate environment and forever changed the biome around her.