How Do You Create Real Social Change? | Alex Rif

Description

Alex Rif immigrated from Ukraine as a child and spent 20 years trying to be "just Israeli": Magen David Adom, officer training, the Civil Service Cadets program and an adviser role at the Ministry of Economy. Precisely there, at the top, she realized it wasn't what she wanted, and turned to writing, to the series "One and a Half Generation" and to co-founding the Cultural Brigade, which turned Novy God into a holiday all of Israel knows. From there she founded the Million Lobby, a nonprofit working at the policy level for Russian-speaking Israelis, funded it with thousand-dollar grants and crowdfunding, and got a meeting with the prime minister at the start of the war in Ukraine. In conversation with Eyal David she explains why entrepreneurship doesn't come naturally to people from the former Soviet Union, how to build influence with research, presentations and a personal lobby of advisers, what went wrong with the current wave of immigration (only 18% of new immigrants work in their profession), how AI can help with translation, accessibility and fighting scams targeting the elderly, and why after October 7 she decided to enter politics.

Key moments

1. 0:00 · Teaser — clips from the episode
2. 1:14 · Introduction
3. 2:44 · Childhood, immigrating from Ukraine and shame about identity
4. 5:03 · Writing, soul-searching and returning to social action
5. 7:20 · Why entrepreneurship feels so unnatural for people from the former USSR
6. 8:44 · The Cultural Brigade and Israeli Novy God
7. 10:41 · Civil service, mission and coming back to social action
8. 13:14 · The Million Lobby: from culture to policy
9. 16:39 · Funding social activity on very little money
10. 19:16 · Slow growth, expanding the agenda and building a lobby
11. 21:34 · The book "More Jewish Than You" and the fight over the narrative
12. 22:45 · Immigrant absorption, Russia-Ukraine and what did work
13. 25:38 · How you get to a prime minister and what it takes
14. 26:54 · How to build a voice for a million people
15. 31:20 · October 7 and how it sped up the decision
16. 32:37 · Lessons from building community and influence
17. 35:25 · What strategic thinking and presentations look like
18. 38:45 · What changed since the 1990s aliyah and what is repeating now
19. 47:46 · AI, scams targeting the elderly and accessibility for immigrants
20. 51:16 · Medicine, teaching and human capital in Israel
21. 54:16 · Who leaves, who stays and how to bring people back
22. 57:25 · Entering politics and the next stage