Sheryl Bronkesh with her daughter, Emily Bronkesh-Buchbinder
Sheryl Bronkesh traveling in Argentina, 2013
Healthcare as corporate director of marketing, before leaving to join two of her professors from business school in a consulting firm. Sheryl has co-authored three books on healthcare marketing and is the president of The HSM Group, a healthcare market research company. Her company is in the process of merging with an East Coast research firm, and once the merge is final, Sheryl will hold the title of executive vice president. She travels extensively for work, conducting focus groups and in-depth interviews with physicians and patients around the country. Sheryl is always on the go, whether traveling the world (she has been to Israel nine times, Europe, Africa, South America and Central America) or exploring the United States (48 states and counting), she never leaves a stone unturned or misses a good story. One of her passions, which she combines with travel, is searching for her family’s personal history. “For the past seven years, I have
“I am committed to Holocaust education because I have seen that the refrain ‘Never again’ is insufficient. There is so much hatred in the world today. This topic is as relevant today as it was during World War II.”
dabbled in family genealogy research. This has included three trips (with another scheduled in August) to the International Jewish Genealogy Conference as well as a trip with my mother and daughter to Poland and Ukraine.” Sheryl said. Her own family story is intriguing and has shaped much of her volunteer work. “My parents and sister emigrated to the US in 1947 from a displaced persons camp in Germany, where my sister was born in 1946. Neither of my parents were in a concentration camp. My father escaped from a labor camp and survived for 2 1/2 years as a partisan in the woods of Poland. My mother had fled –Sheryl Bronkesh to the Soviet Union. Because so many people make the assumption that if you were Jewish in Europe during WWII, you were in a concentration camp, few know that Jews survived in hiding, passing as gentiles or living in the woods.” Besides working full time, her boundless energy and enthusiasm have her volunteering in many areas. She serves on the board of directors for the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors’ Association and since 2013, has served as vice chair of Generations After (GA) - Descendants of Holocaust Survivors in Greater Phoenix. “This organization has grown quickly in its three years in existence. GA is the only Phoenix area group solely for children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors,” Sheryl says. Operating under the auspices of the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors’ Association, GA’s mission is “To embrace our legacy as descendants of Holocaust survivors, to support one another, and to contribute to tikkun olam, repair of the world.” Sheryl co-chairs GA’s Education Committee, which brings in well-known national and international speakers, coordinate’s a speaker’s bureau for Valley schools and organizations, sponsors films and hosts a book discussion group called Book Talk. The next Book Talk is Sunday, May 15, when they will discuss Paper Love by Sarah Wildman, who has agreed to join the conversation by phone. Sheryl invites the community to participate in the discussion, which will begin at 3 pm at the Ina ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE | MAY 2016 41