Born in Iraq and raised in Turkey, Iran, Israel and the USA., Alwaya was among 125,000 Iraqi refugees whose citizenship was revoked and their property confiscated by the Iraqi government in the middle of the 20th century. Her family left Iraq in 1951 and, like many other Jewish refugees, lived in temporary refugee camps in Israel. Alwaya speaks Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew. She has a Masters Degree in Near Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley and has taught Arabic and Farsi at UC Berkeley and Stanford. She also has managed and directed her own language institute.