She was born in
New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of Abraham Surasky and Mary Rose Surasky (
née Greenberg). Her paternal grandparents, Anna and Morris (Max), were
Russian Jews who had immigrated in 1910. Her mother had joined the
Canadian Army to fight in
World War II in 1940, a year before the
United States entered the war, and in 1941 her mother transferred to the newly organized
Women's Army Corps of the United States. Chana Timoner married at 18, and had two children by the time she graduated from college, yet was unhappy and restless as a homemaker and mother. ==Rabbinical career==