Malka Pischanitskaya was born in Romanov (now Romaniv), Ukraine, in 1931. She returned to Romanov after her town was liberated in 1944 and lived there until 1950. Malka moved to Zhytomyr, earning her high school teaching diploma from Ivan Franko State University in 1954. She married and had two children, living with her family in Tashkent and Uzhhorod before immigrating to Vancouver, Canada, in 1975. Malka Pischanitskaya lives in Vancouver.