Zell was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Ruchla and Berek Zielonka, Jewish Polish refugees who fled Poland at the onset of World War II.
Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell.
[5] She received her PhD in Modern European Social and Economic history from Harvard University in 1979, where she won Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright (DAAD), and Krupp Foundation fellowships.
Zell is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee and a Trustee of the American Academy in Berlin.
She is also a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Center for European Studies.