)[1] Although she grew up in a traditional Orthodox household, Chava received a rich education in both Jewish and secular subjects, and enjoyed her family's support for her literary aspirations.

[8] Her first published work, a short story entitled "Ha-Shoshanah" ('The Rose'), appeared in David Frischmann's literary weekly Ha-Dor in December 1901 under the pen name Em Kol Chai ('Mother of All Living').

[10] Shapiro soon began an affair with Hebrew and Yiddish author Reuben Brainin, a married friend of her parents nearly twice her age, whom she met in May 1899 while vacationing with her mother and son at a spa in Franzensbad.

[6] Shapiro continued to write short stories, fifteen of which were collected in Kovetz Tziurim (1909) Its publication became an important literary event because there were so few Jewish women writers at the time.

[12] A lifelong Zionist, Shapiro visited Palestine in 1911 with David Frischmann and her parents as part of a delegation from the Warsaw Yiddish daily Haynt, subsequently publishing in Ha-Zman a three-part travelogue providing an account of the journey.

[10] Shapiro began an illustrious career in journalism and literary criticism, writing articles in Ha-Shiloaḥ, Ha-Toren [he], Ha-Tkufa [he], Ha-Olam, Ha-Do'ar [he], Die Welt, and Selbstwehr [de].

[10][13] Writing almost exclusively in Hebrew, she penned articles about her own family history and reviewed books, plays, and contemporary European writers.

"[15] Shapiro fled to her hometown at the start of World War I in 1914 to avoid internment as an enemy alien, spending the next five years between Slavuta and Kiev.

When the Red Army temporarily retreated from Slavuta in August 1919, Chava and her son escaped to Czechoslovakia with the help of her father's former associate, a wealthy Christian forester.

[6] As Czechoslovak correspondent for Ha-Olam, Shapiro was granted an interview with President Tomáš Masaryk on his 75th birthday (about whom she would publish a monograph in 1935), and regularly reported on the activities of Zionist organizations and the condition of Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe.

[20] Shapiro left behind a handwritten personal diary documenting her life from 1900 to 1941, when she relinquished it to a stranger for safekeeping, which is housed in the Gnazim Archive in Tel Aviv.