Her father worked as an architect for the Austro-Hungarian government.[1] Her family was secular, and did not provide a Jewish education. After the Lwów pogrom (1918), she became involved with the Hashomer Hatzair movement and switched schools to the Jewish gymnasia in Lvov. In 1920 she left for Mandate Palestine with a Hashomer Hatzair group, but later returned to Lvov, for her BA.