Sherri Mandell was born in New York and graduated with a BS from Cornell University and from Colorado State, where she received her M.A. in creative writing. She taught writing at the University of Maryland and at Penn State.

She is the author of Writers of the Holocaust, (Facts on File, 2000) and has written for numerous magazines and journals, including The Washington Post, Denver Post and The Jerusalem Post.

She moved to Israel with her family in 1996, and is now director of The Koby Mandell Foundation Women's Healing Retreat for Bereaved Mothers and Widows.