Frida Ichak relocated in 1906, to Frankfurt where she joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She moved again in 1908, to Berlin where she was politically active and worked as a Maths teacher. It was here that she met the Galician anarcho-communist expressionist writer Ludwig Rubiner. They married towards the end of 1911 while on a visit to London. Through her husband she came into contact with a circle of anarchist-artists. Very soon she was collaborating with her husband to produce translations of Russian novels, for instance those of Gogol. There is a lack of agreement between the sources as to where they were based for the next few years, but the Rubiners appear to have been living in Paris during 1913 and the first part of 1914, then relocating to Berlin. War erupted in July 1914 and by May 1915 they were living together in Zürich: Switzerland was less directly affected by the fighting than the "great powers", Germany, Russia, Britain and France. The Rubiners were members of the "Zimmerwald" Leftwing group based in Zürich, and close to the group's intellectually formidable leader, the Russian exile Lenin.