Her public activities began with philanthropy in the 1890s and moved to radical feminism over the next several decades.
While living in Saratov, she founded the Saratov Hebrew Society for the Care of the Sick (Saratovskoe Evreiskoe Popechitel’stvo o Bol’nykh) in 1893 and served as its President until 1904.
Attacks by the anti-semitic and ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds forced them to flee Saratov into exile, where Kalmanovich was able to attend congresses of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1906 and 1908 and was able to lecture on the women's movement to groups of Russian exiles in Switzerland.
[1] Upon her return to Russia in 1908, Kalmanovich joined the All-Russian Union for Women's Equality (Russian: Всероссийский союз равноправия женщин) and began writing for the magazines Union of Women (Soiuz Zhenshchin) and Woman's Herald (Zhenskii vestnik).
She then joined the All-Russian League for Women's Equality (Russian: Всероссийская лига равноправия женщин) later in 1908.