Born on 6 April 1898 in Nikolayev, Ukraine, to religious parents, business owners. She learned privately.

At the age of twelve, she arrived in America to a brother, who was away from home due to military service. Here she began to work in a shop. Then she entered as a chorister for Esther and Saul Wallerstein in Williamsburg's "Lyric Theatre", where she sang for two years. The possibility then came to her to perform in small roles. She was taken in as a member of Local 5, and she performed during the summertime in the Yiddish vaudeville houses  with Sam Blum, Benny Zeidman et al. After that, she went over to legitimate theatre as a prima donna and acted in her specialty for a season in Newark for Sidney Hart, a season in Brooklyn's "Liberty Theatre" (director Zygmunt Weintraub), three seasons in the "Lyric Theatre" (director Zaks), two seasons in the "Lenox Theatre" (director Nathan Goldberg), two seasons in the "Hopkinson" (directors Green, German, Moshe Schorr), some seasons in Boston (with Bessie Thomashefsky, later with Mae Simon and Hymie Jacobson), "McKinley Square Theatre" and "Bronx Art Theatre", as well as a short time in the "Prospect Theatre".

P. was the first to sing cantorial tefilot in the theatre plays, debuting thereby in S. H. Cohen's operetta "Dem rbins tekhter" in 1919 in the "Liberty Theatre".