Biography
Yafa Abramov (later Yafa Gustin and Yafa Yarkoni) was born in Giv'at Rambam (today a neighbourhood of Giv'atayim) to a Jewish family that immigrated from the Caucasus. At the age of ten, she studied ballet dancing under Gertrude Kraus, one of Israel's dance pioneers.
In the 1940s, her mother ran a café in Givat Rambam, where Yafa performed with her sister Tikva and her brother Binyamin. On 21 September 1944, she married Joseph Gustin, who fought in World War II with the Jewish Brigade and was killed in battle in Italy in 1945.
Yarkoni married Shaike Yarkoni in 1948. They had three daughters.
In 2000, Yarkoni was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. According to her daughter, Haaretz journalist Orit Shochat, her condition worsened in 2007. That year she appeared for the last time on a television show produced in her honor by the Israel Broadcasting Authority.
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