In 1864, she married Rabbi Solomon Sonneschein and moved with his congregational posts to Varaždin, Prague, New York City, and finally to St. Louis, Missouri.

The divorce was granted to Rabbi Sonneschein on the grounds of desertion and thus she was left without alimony, leading her to enterprise on her journalistic skills to support herself.

In May 1893, she participated on Press Congress panel at the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago, where she spoke on "Newspaperwomen in Austria"."

She urged NCJW members to fight for religious equality within their synagogues, criticized the New Woman ideal, and was one of the first journalists to champion a Jewish homeland in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Over time, she grew increasingly frustrated and publicly critical of NCJW, because the organization did not take up her passion for Zionism or her religious goals.