Born in 1888 in Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine, to very religious parents, merchants. At the age of seventeen she married Naum Gordon, an active social revolutionary, and because of this had to leave Russia. She initially immigrated to London, and then to Toronto, Canada, where she acted in a dramatic association and acted with them in Yiddish and Russian for various organizations, later joining as a professional in a local Yiddish troupe.

In 1909 she arrived with her family in New York, where she entered into the Yiddish theatres in order to act professionally. Once, acting in a mother role with Sara Adler in Russian, she caught the attention of the famous American writer Fannie Hearst, who recommended that she perform in the mother role in her play "Yumaresk" in English. G. took as such a deep interest in the role, that later when the play was adapted for a film she also acted there in that role, and succeeded greatly in the play. According to A. Babitz, that they had taken over the name of the star Elma Gluck and used her name, and that the role had made her a star. She became popular under the name "The Yiddish Mother", acting then in for almost twenty years on the English stage and in various films, as well as the legitimate English and vaudeville stage, among them the play "Potash and Perlmutter".

In between-time, she also used to perform in Yiddish.