Ra'hel was born in Russia in 1890. She arrived in Palestine in 1909, where she soon became a devoted kibbutznik. Later, she developed TB, and she died in 1931. Many of her poems have been set to music, and she remains one of Israel's best-loved poets. Modern in her tone and style, her themes are traditional: Ra'hel was one of the first Hebrew poets to assimilate the colloquialisms of a language which for millennia had served mainly for the transmission of religious history, tradition and law.