A ninth generation Jerusalemite, Raquela is the chief protagonist in the eponymous book, written by Ruth Gruber, who, in 1978, spent a year in Israel writing the life story.

[1] Raquela graduated nursing at Hadassah Hospital, on Mount Scopus, years prior to the founding of the State of Israel.

After Jordan seized East Jerusalem, in 1948, she worked in the baby's ward at Hadassah Hospital 'A'.

She helped deliver Jewish and Bedouin babies at the new Beersheva hospital, and saved the life of Sarah, Golda Meir's only daughter, who almost died from eclampsia.

Raquela Prywes died of hepatitis acquired from a blood transfusion in March 1985, at the age of 60 years.