[1] She is Jewish, was bat mitzvah, and attended Congregation Beth Israel-Judea in San Francisco.

[2] Her mother is Carolyn Minkin (a black belt), her father, former Green Beret Stephen Minkin, died in a plane crash when she was five years old, and she has three siblings, Zisa, Ben, and Davina (trained in Israel for a year with Olympic medalist Yael Arad).

[4][1] Minkin won the silver medal in the women's half lightweight division (–52 kg) at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

[1] She represented her native country at the age of 22 at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Women's 52 kg in Athens, Greece.

[6] In 2009, she began to train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and won the gold medal at the 2011 IBJJF Pan Am Championships.