She was the driving force behind the publication of Encyclopaedia Hebraica,[1] and is credited with starting Israel's annual Hebrew Book Week.

[2] Bronya Kutzenok (later Bracha Peli) was born in Starovitzky, a small village in Russia, now Ukraine[3] to a family of Hasidic Jews.

Her father, Shmuel Kutzenok, was a wealthy lumber merchant who supplied timber for artillery wagons to the Russian army.

[3] In 1914, after her mother died of tuberculosis, Peli met a young Zionist teacher, Meir Pilipovetsky, whom she married against her family's wishes.

[3] In 1926, Peli opened a stall in Tel Aviv to sell books cheaply, which led to the inauguration of an annual event.