Mem Bernstein is a venture philanthropist, Chairman of The AVI CHAI Foundation, trustee of Keren Keshet, and author. She grew up in the Bronx, New York, in an extended kosher-keeping Jewish family, with parents who had no formal education—her father worked as a taxi driver before owning a toy store with her mother—who instilled strong Jewish values through example. At age 20, she married Hal Dryan and relocated to San Jose, California, where they successfully started a mortgage banking business. After the birth of their third child, she co-founded the South Peninsula Hebrew Day School (now a community day school) with Chabad rabbis and others, purchasing a public school building for it. She has three children from this first marriage and ten grandchildren, all of whom graduated from or attend Jewish day schools in northern California and the San Francisco area; she is the grandparent of Sophia (JCHS class of 2017). Divorced in 1977, she moved to San Francisco in 1986 and became active in community leadership, chairing the women's division and campaign chairs (women's and men's) for the federation, serving on the national young leadership cabinet and local JCC board, and later joining the day school board. In 1988, she married Zalman Chaim Bernstein on a blind date and moved to Jerusalem, Israel, where her philanthropic involvement deepened; she is the widow of the Tikvah founder. She authored two books in the late 1980s: Aging Parents and You (United States) and The Sandwich Generation (Israel). She served as Founding Chairman of the board of Jewish Community High School of the Bay for its first ten years (school founded 2001) and resides in Jerusalem.