[1] Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb was born in La Goulette, Tunisia, on 27 July 1927 to a practicing Jewish Berber family.

[2] Her mother, Fortunée "Fritna" Mettoudi, conformed to society's expectations of traditional womanhood, which Halimi cited as the reason for her own early feminist engagement.

[8] She acted as a counsel for the Algerian National Liberation Front, most notably for the activist Djamila Boupacha, who had been raped and tortured by French soldiers,[8] writing a book in 1961 (with an introduction by Simone de Beauvoir) to plead her case.

[citation needed] In 1971, she founded the feminist group Choisir (To Choose)[9] to protect the women who had signed the Manifesto of the 343 admitting to having had illegal abortions, of whom she was one.

[8][10] In 1972, Choisir evolved into a clearly reformist body, and its campaign greatly influenced the passage of the law allowing contraception and abortion carried through by Simone Veil in 1974.