[2] Encouraged by her brother Aaron, she studied languages and was fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish and French, had reasonable command of Arabic and taught herself English.

[2] On 31 March 1914, she was married in Atlit to Haim Abraham, an affluent merchant from Bulgaria, and Zionist activist [3] and lived briefly with him in Istanbul; but the marriage was an unhappy one and she returned home to Zichron Yaakov in December 1915.

In 1917, her brother Alexander urged her to remain in British-controlled Egypt, expecting hostilities from Ottoman authorities; but Aaronsohn returned to Zichron Yaakov to continue Nili activities.

In Spies in Palestine, James Srodes quotes the diary of Dr. Hillel Yaffe as saying that Sarah pleaded with him, "For heaven's sake, put an end to my life.

[10] In her last letter, she expressed her hope that her activities in Nili would bring nearer the realization of a national home for the Jews in Eretz Israel.

Aaronsohn was the first example of a "secular, active death of a Jewish-Zionist woman for the nation, unprecedented in both religious martyrdom and in the Zionist tradition established in Palestine.

After the Six-Day War of 1967, the memory of Aaronsohn and of Nili became a part of Israel's cult of heroism, officially recognized by the Labor Party and celebrated in children's literature.