[1] Manya Malka (later Mirit) Cohen) was born in Russia to a socialist and Zionist family.
Her father, Haim Cohen, a Polish Jew, was born in Łódź, and fled during the Second World War to Russia, where he met her mother Rebecca – A Russian woman of Jewish descent.
Three years later, Cohen moved back with her parents and began attending high school in Bnei Brak.
After her military service, Cohen worked as a clerk in the Israel Export Institute in the textile and fashion department.
With the help of this scholarship she studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1975–1977, after which she continued to live in the United States.