Harkavy was born in Estonia to Yoel and Hannah Rothenberg[3] and immigrated to the United States around 1900.

[4] She studied at the Art Students League of New York, at Hunter College, and in Paris with Antoine Bourdelle.

[6] She was a founding member of the Sculptors Guild and showed a work, My Children are Desolate Because the Enemy Prevailed in the Second Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition[7] Negro Head in the 1940–1941[8] and Woman in Thought in 1941.

[3] A bust of Italian-American anti-fascist (and her lover)[3] Carlo Tresca who was assassinated in New York in 1943 was installed in his birthplace of Sulmona, Italy.

[10] Harkavy was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949.