[1] Her father, Joseph Stein, the son of German Jewish immigrants, worked as a journalist and later in the automotive industry and opened the first Cadillac dealership in New Jersey; her mother, Rose Liebesman Stein, was the daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants.
Early in his career, Tisch made his living from kosher hotels which catered to the Jewish community.
[1] In 1962, she became a trustee of the Blythedale Children's Hospital in Valhalla, New York, serving on its board of directors.
She was instrumental in obtaining Federation sponsorship for Blythedale which also ran a program on joint disease in addition to being a children's hospital.
[1] In 2006, she received an honorary doctorate from New York University for "extraordinary leadership and generosity across an array of civic and philanthropic endeavors".