Viva descends, on her mother’s side, from the Maharal of Prague who was a kabbalist, mystic and creator of the Golem. The Maharal descended from King David who descended from Eve and Adam. So on her mother’s side, Viva descends from Adam and Eve.

On her father’s side, Viva descends from at least one tailor and one butcher and some Talmud scholars.

By chance, Viva was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. Not by chance she moved to New York where her great grandmother was born. Viva couch surfed in New York for a decade or so until she moved to Washington where she surfed on her own couches for more than a decade. In Washington she worked in the US Congress and the Treasury Department which is next door to the White House but has a more memorable address.

In her short life, Viva has been a Rebbetzin, a government girl, a partner at a law firm and a consulting firm.  She wrote the Women’s column for the Jerusalem Post, and has also written for the Washingtonian, Lilith, Forward, Rio Grande Review, Potomac Review, First Things, Commonweal and other places.

Viva has developed and leads a program called The Tongue Set Free empowering immigrant women to write their migration journeys.

Viva has written two books, Child Desire, which asks and answers the question of why we have children, and A Washington Affair, a novel about working and dating on Capitol Hill.