Manya Wilbushewitch (also Mania, Wilbuszewicz/Wilbushewitz; later Shochat) was born in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) to middle-class Jewish parents and grew up on the family estate near Łosośna. One of her brothers, Isaac, studied agriculture in Russia. He was expelled for slapping a professor who, in the course of a lecture, stated that the Jews were sucking the blood of the farmers in Ukraine. In late 1882, he left for Palestine and joined the Bilu movement. His letters home were a powerful influence on young Shochat. Another one of her brothers, an engineer named Gedaliah, also went to Palestine in 1892 and helped fund his younger siblings' education.