Born in 1909 to an orthodox Jewish family in Manheim, near Odessa, she secretly joined the illegal left-wing Zionist party HaShomer HaTsair at the age of 14. During WW2 she was evacuated to Central Asia, where she continued her Zionist activity and returned to Odessa after the war. In 1952 she and her husband were arrested for subversive Zionist activity and sentenced to 10 years hard labor. Released in 1954, after the death of Stalin, she still had to wait until 1973 before finally getting to Israel.
