Marina Furman is an internationally renowned speaker with more than 20 extensive speaking tours under her belt. For 10 years, Marina was a refusenik and an underground activist in Kyiv and St. Petersburg, fighting the Soviet regime to allow freedom of immigration for Soviet Jews and for her personal freedom. She endured arrests, an assassination attempt, and daily harassment but never gave in to the Soviet government's attempts to silence her. Marina, her husband Lev, a prominent refusenik and underground Hebrew teacher, and their 13-month-old daughter Aliyah were finally able to make aliyah to Israel on Independence Day of 1988 after 10 years as refuseniks. In 1998, Marina became an Israeli emissary to Philadelphia where she still lives today with her husband, daughters Aliyah and Michal, and grandsons Zev and Coby. For the last 21 years, Marina's life mission has become to advocate for Israel in her role as a National Major Gifts Director for the Jewish National Fund.

Marina has published many articles and has been featured in numerous publications and documentaries, most notably the full-length documentary "A Long Way to Freedom." A play about Marina and her husband Lev, called "Lev of Leningrad," is currently in the early production stage in NY.