Orna is the assistant to the director of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She has a BA in history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also studied towards a Master's degree in contemporary Jewry. She started working at the Institute in 2001 and over the years has served in a variety of roles in the Van Leer Institute Press, among them associate editor of the journal Theory and Criticism and scientific editor of the press. She has been a substantive editor and copy editor of numerous academic publications at the Institute and elsewhere, and she was the co-editor of the journal Tchelet. In December 2020 Orna succeeded Zippi Hecht as assistant to the director of the Institute.