She was trained as a nurse at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey and worked in a New York gynaecological clinic.

[4][5] David Ben-Gurion met her at the home of her employer and Poale Zion supporter Dr Samuel Ellsberg in summer of 1915.

Recalling this period Ben-Gurion said that she was not a Zionist, she had very little Jewish feeling, she was an American, she was an anarchist who admired Emma Goldman.

Throughout their marriage she had to endure Ben-Gurion's long absences abroad and recurring suspicions, sometimes justified, about his relationships with other women.

She was bemused by her husband's interest in yoga and when his tutor, the famous Moshé Feldenkrais would show up she would say: "Here comes Mr. Hocus Pocus."