Gertrude (Gert) Loewenstein (later Gurit Kadman) was born in Leipzig, Germany to an assimilated Jewish family that traced its roots to Prague.

[1] In 1919, she married Leo Kaufman, and the couple joined the Blau Weiss Zionist youth movement and began agricultural training in preparation for a communal life in Palestine.

In 1920, they immigrated to Mandate Palestine and were among the founders of the communal settlement Heftziba, first near Hadera, where another son, Amnon, was born, and then at its permanent location in the Jezreel Valley.

[2] In 1925, she accompanied her husband on an educational mission to Austria, where their daughter, Ayala, was born.

In 1931, the family left the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv.