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Born into a Hasidic family in Łódź, Poland, on June 4, 1918, to Tzvi Chaim Stern and Genendel Avital (née Silberberg), Sarah was the eldest of four children, including her sisters Chaya and Hendla Tzivia and her brother Avraham Yerachmiel. Her father, who managed a textile business owned by the Silberberg family, insisted that Stern-Katan attend non-religious Zionist schools . According to Stern-Katan’s own accounts, such an education was highly unconventional within her social milieu. Her father justified this choice by his desire to provide her with direct access to Jewish and Hebrew sources in their original form, thereby fostering broad cultural literacy.

In 1934, Stern-Katan joined Bnei Akiva- a religious Zionist youth movement affiliated with the HaPoel HaMizrachi stream, which represented the pioneering-socialist wing of religious Zionism. This movement championed the ideals of religious labor and the establishment of pioneering agricultural communities in Eretz Israel. At that time, two distinct but ideologically aligned youth movements operated in Poland: Bnei Akiva and HaShomer HaDati, both of which educated their members toward pioneering Aliyah (immigration). Having been exposed to Zionist ideology through her schooling, Stern-Katan was drawn to the local Bnei Akiva branch in Łódź, as it offered a unique synthesis of her Zionist education and her religious upbringing. She soon became one of the movement's leading figures, a notable achievement at a time when it was rare for women to hold leadership positions in religious Zionist circles. Her prominence was reflected in her representation of Bnei Akiva at nationwide gatherings. 

On the eve of World War II, Stern-Katan postponed her planned immigration to Eretz Israel at the movement’s request, in order to remain in Poland and help train the next generation of youth leaders. When World War II broke out, Stern-Katan chose to remain in Łódź with her family, even as most youth movement leaders fled. Within the ghetto, she continued her educational activities as both a teacher and an organizer for the youth movement. Together with Yitzhak Zachariash, leader of Hashomer HaDati (the largest religious Zionist youth movement in prewar Poland, which shared Bnei Akiva’s pioneering aspirations), Stern-Katan initiated and led the unification of the two movements into a single entity. She was among the initiators and leaders of the agricultural training collectives (hakhsharot) in Marysin, a semi-rural suburb on the outskirts of Łódź that was evacuated of its farming residents and annexed to the ghetto; this was an ambitious and innovative project for members of the Zionist youth movements in the ghetto, combining agricultural labor, communal living, and cultural-Zionist education for hundreds of young people.

After the dismantling of the collectives in 1941, due to the increasing restrictions imposed by the Judenrat, Stern-Katan continued clandestine youth movement activity, providing emotional and moral support to both youth and counselors and making efforts—within the existing constraints—to assist movement members and their families during deportations (Aktionen). In the final stages of the ghetto’s liquidation in August 1944, after failed attempts to hide and following the deportation of her family, she was sent with other youth movement leaders to Auschwitz and later transferred to Stutthof and Sophienwald, where she remained until being liberated by the Red Army in March 1945.

After her liberation, Stern-Katan returned to Łódź following a long journey. Soon after, she began working for the Jewish Community Council, registering returnees to the city. In the course of this work, she encountered the revival of Zionist movements in Łódź but realized that a dedicated framework for religious Zionist survivors was lacking. In the absence of veteran leadership, she founded the first postwar religious kibbutz, Le-Ever HaYarden, within the Ichud (Union of Democratic Zionists), a body established by survivors of various Zionist parties to provide immediate aid to Jewish refugees.

In July 1945, together with other activists, Stern-Katan organized the first post-war movement conference, which called for the reestablishment of Ha-Mizrachi (the main religious Zionist party focusing on religious education and communal life) and Torah ve-Avodah (the umbrella organization for religious-pioneer youth movements).  This conference marked a turning point in the movement’s reconstruction: from individual initiatives to an organized movemen  officially recognized by the central Zionist institutions and the Jewish communal leadership in Poland. By the end of 1945, she had led the creation of additional kibbutzim (communal training communes in Poland established to prepare survivors for Aliyah); these kibbutzim served as the basis for a broad organizational and ideological infrastructure, in line with Torah ve-Avodah principles, that addressed the existential and ideological needs of many young survivors. This infrastructure formed the foundation for the movement’s extensive activity. At its peak, the movement operated 27 branches, seventeen kibbutzim, and additional institutions that facilitated the immigration of thousands of Jews to Israel.

In 1946, Stern-Katan moved to Germany, joining the leadership of the newly independent Mizrachi–Torah ve-Avodah movement, where she was responsible for agricultural training programs in DP camps. Due to ideological and organizational disagreements within the movement’s leadership, she was pushed out of her leadership roles.

Immigrating to Israel in 1947, Stern-Katan joined the religious Zionist Kibbutz Yavneh and married Israel Katan, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, an agronomist, and a Torah scholar. The couple had no children. Stern-Katan entered the leadership of the Ha-Poel ha-Mizrachi Women’s Organization, the movement's female wing, dedicated to advancing the social and educational welfare of religious women in Israel. In this role, she focused on immigrant absorption and youth institutions. She earned a BA in social work work from the Hebrew University (1959). Between 1964 and 1965, she pursued an MA  in social work at Simmons University in Boston, on an international scholarship from the United Nations aimed at promoting professional leadership in social welfare. Upon her return, she lectured at Bar-Ilan University and resumed her senior role in  the Ministry of Welfare. notably as the National Supervisor of secondary-school youth.

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Stern-Katan also played a significant role in shaping Holocaust commemoration in Israel. In 1980, she initiated an amendment to the State Education Law, adding “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance” to Israel’s core educational values, which institutionalized Holocaust education nationwide. She successfully amended laws about Memorial Day to extend public entertainment bans for the entire day, ensuring broader public participation in national mourning.

As a member of Yad Vashem’s directorate, Stern-Katan promoted the inclusion of marginalized narratives specifically by advocating for the recognition of daily “Jewish standing” (Amidah), referring to spiritual and civil resilience), and the role of Religious and Ultra-Orthodox society within the discourse of heroism. She spearheaded the documentation of Bnei Akiva’s wartime activity in Poland, securing the place of religious Zionist youth movements in Holocaust historiography and national memory.

From her leadership in the Łódź ghetto to rebuilding the religious Zionist movement in postwar Poland, from her work in the Knesset to her leadership of Emunah, Stern-Katan consistently took on leadership roles in times of crisis and in shaping communal life. Her contributions left a lasting imprint on religious Zionist activism, women’s public representation, and Holocaust remembrance in education and the public sphere.

Stern-Katan died on September 21, 2001.