Prior to the late 19th century, women were almost absent from Jewish public and religious life in Congress Poland (Russian Poland or the Kingdom of Poland, which was under Russian authority from 1815 to 1915) and the province of Galicia (which was part of the Habsburg Empire from 1772 to 1918). Only toward the end of the century did women become more visible in Jewish life in these areas, as a result of changes in lifestyle across Eastern Europe. The rise in the average age of marriage significantly increased the number of young Jewish women from the middle class who studied at gymnasium [high school] and university. At the same time, many young women from poorer milieus left their families and moved to big cities, where they lived on their own and came in contact with new ideas and ideologies. As a result, at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentieth centuries, Jewish women joined socialist parties and revolutionary movements in significant numbers. But although they were involved in Zionism in its nascent years, women were not part of the Zionist leadership in either Congress Poland or Galicia.

Until World War I, Zionist activity in Congress Poland falls under the rubric of Russian Zionist activities. During the period of proto-Zionism, between the early 1880s and 1897, several dozen local Lit. "love of Zion." Movement whose aim was national renaissance of Jews and their return to Erez Israel. Began in Russia in 1882 in response to the pogroms of the previous year. Led to the formation of Bilu, the first modern aliyah movement.Hibbat Zion (Lover of Zion) associations were founded in Congress Poland as well as across Russia. In addition to supporting the Jewish settlements created in Palestine at the beginning of 1880s, members of Hibbat Zion studied the Hebrew language and nurtured Hebrew literature and culture. Between 1882 and 1897, women formed separate associations, called Benut Zion (daughters of Zion), in various parts of the Russian Empire, including Congress Poland. As with Hibbat Zion, the members mostly studied Hebrew language, Bible, and Jewish history. Young women from the lower social classes conducted their activities in Yiddish, women from the middle class in Polish or Russian. In 1894, the Benut Zion association in Vilnius established a Hebrew-language school for girls, as well as a library where young women could borrow books. Similar activities took place across Congress Poland.

Nevertheless, Benut Zion organizations were not represented at the Hibbat Zion gatherings that took place in Katowice in November 1884, Druskieniki in July 1887, and Vilna in August 1889. Jewish women’s Zionist associations also were not represented on Hibbat Zion’s executive committee (Odessa Committee), founded after Zionist activity became legal in the Russian Empire in April 1890. Several members of the Odessa Committee, wanting to guarantee cooperation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox leaders and members of Hibbat Zion, refused to grant the female members of Benut Zion associations the recognition they deserved. Even the Bnei Moshe (Children of Moshe) association, a secular Zionist association, closed its doors to women. 

After the official establishment of the international Zionist movement in 1897, women continued to be involved in Zionist activities in Congress Poland, as well as in other parts of the Russian Empire, without the recognition they deserved. Among the 250 official representatives of the first Zionist Congress who gathered in Basel in August 1997, only twelve were women, and none of these were from Congress Poland. The few women from Congress Poland who attended this Congress were family members who accompanied delegates or journalists who came to report on it, and the names of these women were not included on the official list of participants at this historic event. When the first legal Zionist assembly in the Russian Empire took place in Minsk between August 22 and 28 (September 4 through 10), 1902, no information on women’s activities was provided in the reports on the conference other than that they took care of the refreshments.  

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Jewish nationalist associations in Galicia were first established in the mid-1880s. Many were inspired by Kadima, the Zionist student association in Vienna, and by Hibbat Zion associations in the Russian Empire, and they generally operated similarly to those in Russia. For instance, in Lwów they organized public lectures and studied Hebrew language and literature and Jewish history, while the Ahavat Zion (Love of Zion) association in Tarnów supported Jewish settlements in Palestine. According to Austrian law, women could not be official members of associations established by men but could participate in their activities and events. At Zionist events, young women performed, sang, played musical instruments, and recited literary texts in Polish and German.

The first women’s Zionist association in Galicia—called Devora, after the first wife of Eliezer Ben Yehuda—was founded in Lwów in 1894; within a year, it had 50 members. This association was aimed at young educated women. Like women’s Zionist associations in the Russian Empire, Devora members studied Hebrew and organized Zionist literary events. Other women’s Zionist associations followed, in Krakow, Tarnow, Drohobych, Bolekhiv, and other towns across Galicia. Many of these associations were named after women from the Bible, such as Ruth or Rachel. Most were aimed at young women, but older Jewish women also began to participate in Zionist meetings and took part in Jewish nationalist educational and cultural activities. Both the younger and older women were primarily interested in gaining recognition as an ethnic or national minority rights for Galician Jewry and also supported the right of the Jewish people to return to their historical homeland. They were less interested in promoting the emancipation of (Jewish or non- Jewish) women. Male Zionist leaders also did not believe that the Jewish nationalist movement’s agenda should include a call for emancipation of women.  

The establishment of Zionist women associations, and the entire involvement of women in different Jewish national activities, did not face any particular rejection within local Jewish national circles. Zionist men did not challenge the involvement of female members at different Zionist activities and were not against the establishment of the Zionist women associations.    

In 1899, Rosa Pomeranc Melcer (1873–1934) published a pamphlet in Germany under the title Die Bedeutung die Frau im nationalen juedischen Leben (The Importance of the Woman in Jewish National Life). After the publication of this pamphlet, Pomeranc Melcer became the leading figure among women Zionist activists. From 1903 on, most of her efforts were dedicated to gathering the various Zionists women’s associations under one umbrella. To achieve this goal, she tried to cooperate with Zionist associations in other parts of the Austrian Empire. In 1908, Koło Kobiet Żydowskich- KKŻ (Jewish Women’s Circle), founded in Lwów, gathered together several Jewish women’s associations in Galicia engaged in Zionist cultural and educational activities, and Pomerac Melcer was elected its President. In February 1910, the first national conference of Zionist women’s organizations in Galicia took place in Lwów.  In 1911 Pomeranc Melcer represented the Galician Zionist federation at the Zionist women’s conference that took place at the time of the tenth Zionist Congress in Basel.

Prior to World War I, Zionist women’s associations in Galicia, under the leadership of KKŻ, focused on Jewish education and on learning Hebrew. KKŻ members came mostly from the bourgeoisie and tended to be older. Young women joined another organization, Miriam, whose activities were similar to those of other Zionist women associations. Female gymnasium students who supported the Zionist idea but did not join Miriam participated in other educational programs aimed at male Zionist students and also contributed articles to Polish Zionist periodicals. After the Marxist Zionist party Poale Zion (Workers of Zion) was founded in Galicia in 1907, local working-class Zionist women’s associations were formed, which also engaged mainly in cultural and educational activities.

During World War I, KKŻ was involved in social welfare activities, such as opening soup kitchens for the local Jewish population and for the Jewish refugees who arrived in Galicia during the war. It also created establishments that trained poor young Jewish women for employment in sewing workshops. KKŻ continued its activities in the political and public spheres when the second Polish Republic was established in 1918.  It cooperated with other Zionist women’s associations but, given Galicia’s position on the periphery of the second Polish Republic, it did not become the leading women’s Zionist organization in Poland.

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Indeed, in more than a few Zionist youth movements the majority were women. In the late 1920s, in the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair (The Young Guard), the proportion of female members increased as the ages of the members rose; many male members left around the age of fifteen, while the girls remained in the youth movement until the age of seventeen or eighteen. The female members were also considered to be of higher quality, with more women studying in gymnasia than men. Nevertheless, Hashomer Hatzair’s leadership was entirely male, as it was in all the other youth Zionist movements. If a youth movement’s leadership included women, as was the case in Hechalutz Hatzair, their numbers did not necessarily reflect the fact that female members were in the majority members.

Although all of those engaged with the Zionist youth movements, as with Hechalutz, declared emphatically that they believed the genders were equal, in daily life female youth movement members and the female pioneers in Hechalutz training farms found themselves dealing with many prejudices regarding what women could or could not do. Even though over the years the numbers of female pioneers in the training farms increased dramatically, many women worked in the kitchens, laundries, and other tasks considered to be female works. Many of the women at Hechalutz training farms in Poland came from traditional backgrounds, and their parents did not always support their choice to be Zionists, nor their decision to join the training farms and eventually to emigrate to Palestine.

Despite the prejudices and other difficulties with which Zionist woman had to struggle, to many of these young women the Zionist pioneering way of life in the youth movements and in Hechalutz organizations provided almost the only opportunity in the gloomy reality of interwar Poland to dramatically change their life. Women’s involvement in the Zionist youth movements, in the Hechalutz organization, and in the Socialist Zionist parties, is one of the most significant revolutionary accomplishments of the Zionist movement in interwar Poland.