Leah Goldberg was born to a Jewish Lithuanian family from Kaunas, however her mother traveled to the nearby German city of Königsberg (today, Russian Kaliningrad) in order to give birth in better medical conditions.
According to Goldberg's autobiographical account, in 1938, when the family traveled back to Kaunas in 1919, a Lithuanian border patrol stopped them and accused her father of being a "Bolshevik spy".
This group was led by Avraham Shlonsky and was characterised by adhering to Symbolism especially in its Russian Acmeist form, and rejecting the style of Hebrew poetry that was common among the older generation, particularly that of Haim Nachman Bialik.
Goldberg worked as a high-school teacher she and earned a living writing rhymed advertisements until she was hired as an editor by the Hebrew newspapers Davar and Al HaMishmar.
With exemplary knowledge of seven languages, Goldberg also translated numerous foreign literary works exclusively into Modern Hebrew from Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, French, and English.
Although she has planned to show how mature she has become, Nora instead experiences unrequited love, bad memories, and observation brought on by the limits imposed on her a classist and antisemitic society.
In 1959, Room for Rent was republished as a children's book with illustrations by Shoshana Heiman - reportedly as a reaction to the Wadi Salib riots during which Israelis of Middle Eastern descent protested against racist government officials and discrimination.
Four animals show up at the house and although they find the room nice, they offend the tenants with their reasons for not moving in: the hardworking Miss Ant dislikes Miss Hen for being fat and lazy; the motherly Mrs. Rabbit despises the Cuckoo for abandoning her sons in other birds' nests despite her visiting them daily; the white-skinned Snortimus Pig gets chased out for refusing to be neighbors with the black-furred Cat; and the musical Nightingale complains that the Squirrel is noisy whenever she cracks the pecans she shares with her friends.
Considered a classic in Israeli literature, Room for Rent is read to children to teach them the timely message of tolerating diverse people's races, beliefs, and practices, and that friends come in all shapes and sizes.
Nili Gold, Modern Hebrew Literature scholar and editor of the English translation of And This is the Light, has noted Goldberg's "high aestheticism, musicality, and unique merging of intellect and humanity".
Her work is minor and modest, taking a majestic landscape like the Jerusalem hills and focusing on a stone, a thorn, one yellow butterfly, a single bird in the sky.
In 2011, Goldberg was announced as one of four great Israeli poets who would appear on Israel's currency (together with Rachel Bluwstein, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and Natan Alterman).
[19] The design of the 100 new shekel banknote includes the portrait of Leah Goldberg and her poem In the land of my love the almond tree blossoms in microprint.