 Berezin was born in the east Bronx in 1925 to Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, and attended Christopher Columbus High School.She started university at Hunter College in January 1941, studying Economics instead of the Physics she preferred because it was preferred as a subject for women at that time.After WWII started, new opportunities made the study of physics possible with a scholarship at New York University, plus free classes at both Hunter and Brooklyn Polytech during the war years.