Dr. Anna Kohen, DDS, was born in Vlora, Albania, just after the end of World War II and grew up in a small community of Romaniote Jews that Muslim Albanians had saved from the Nazis. Her family then experienced the hardships of the communist dictatorship. Managing to leave Albania with her family in 1966 through careful planning and trickery, she first settled in Greece, where she completed her dentistry studies at the Ethnikon and Kapodistriakon University of Athens Dental School. Emigrating to the United States in 1971, she continued her studies at New York University’s Dental School and received a DDS Dental Degree in 1976. After graduation she was appointed as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Restorative Dentistry at NYU Dental School and taught there for ten years. She practiced general dentistry at her office in Manhattan until her retirement to Sarasota, Florida in 2013.
In 1990, with the help of several Jewish organizations, Dr. Kohen brought 37 of her Jewish-Albanian relatives to the US, and assisted them in the process of integration. In 1991, she was invited to Albania to celebrate the formation of the Albanian Israeli Society, of which she is an elected an Honorary Member. In 2004, the President of the Albanian Republic, Alfred Moisiu, recognized Dr. Kohen with the Special Civil Merits medal for, “Valuable contributions helping Albanians during the Kosovar humanitarian crisis; for precious aid given to the new Albanian emigrants in the United States of America.” In 2006, Dr. Kohen was given the title Honored Citizen of Vlora by the Major of Vlora. On that same day, Dr. Kohen witnessed the renaming of a street where her Jewish community had lived to “The Jewish Street,” the results of her efforts to have Albania’s Jewish community recognized. In 2013, the New York Chapter of American Albanian National Organization gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award. Another Albanian President, Bujar Nishani, honored Dr. Kohen during his official visit to Washington, DC, in 2014.

Dr. Kohen’s nonprofit work includes assisting the Fresh Air Fund in sending numerous underprivileged children to summer camp, aiding Allen Healthcare provide free classes Albanian immigrants to become home attendants for Albanian elderly, and in partnership with the Italian Cancer Society, helping provide free mammograms to Albanian women without insurance at the Bronx House. She has assisted the Domenick Scaglione Children’s Foundation in Tirana, the Little Baby Face Foundation, and partnered with Gift Of Life International to provide Albanian children with lifesaving heart surgeries.
Dr. Kohen frequently visits Albanian schools in the Bronx, teaching children how to take care of their teeth and maintain good oral hygiene. She has participated in countless community events and contributed moral, emotional and financial support to members of the Albanian community. For nearly two decades, she was elected and served as President of the Albanian American Women’s Organization—“Motrat Qiriazi”—the most active organization in the Albanian community. She founded and is president of AAWO’s Florida chapter. In 2016, Dr. Kohen accepted a Golden Eagle Award at the Diaspora Summit in Albania on behalf of AAWO. In 2018, she was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from AAWO in New York on International Women’s Day and Teachers’ Day. In 2019, she was honored by the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, where she is the founding chair of its International Holocaust Remembrance Day. She has spoken before the United Nations, is an Honorary Member of the Albanian Medical Society, and was honored with a Proclamation from New York City Hall. Dr. Kohen is married to a Holocaust survivor from Poland and has two children and three grandchildren.