Lia Greenberg was born on August 8, 1924, in the Bessarabian city of Bălți, then in Romania, now in Moldova, to a Jewish family.

In 1940, her parents sent her to Palestine to visit her sister Bruria, a dentist, who had immigrated in 1936 and was living in Tel Aviv.

In 1952, she married Wim Van Leer, a Dutch engineer, pilot, playwright and film producer, and settled in Haifa.

In 1973, a Brazilian businessman, George Ostrovsky, who dreamt of creating a cinematheque in Israel, approached the van Leers and persuaded them and Teddy Kollek to share his dream.

After the death of her husband in 1991, she inaugurated the Wim Van Leer Award for High School Students to encourage young filmmakers.