Lena is a social entrepreneur and an activist. She is a radio host at KAN – Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, a media person and also a clinical affairs manager at biomedical Israeli industry. She is an opinion leader and a lecturer. Lena holds a BSc in Biomedical Science from a leading medical research program at Tel Aviv University and M.A. in gender studies from Tel Aviv University.
At age nine Lena came on aliyah with her family, leaving the Former Soviet Union to follow the dream of a better future in the Jewish homeland. Lena’s personal experiences of aliya and the clash when idealism met Israeli reality were fruitful ground for her involvement with the struggle for social justice and inclusivity. Lena became a leading voice, writing and speaking about the challenges facing the Russian Jewish community in Israel, especially women, in the media, academia, and the Knesset and works with various NGOs and lectures widely on these issues.
She also founded several social change and media projects that continue to have a profound impact on social agenda, media discourse, and ultimately, people’s lives. She is the founder and a leader of a large Facebook community, which currently numbers more than 41,000 members, that seeks to combat prejudices against Russian-speaking Israelis and the discourse in which became viral and changed the collective consciousness. Lena organized a successful fundraising event, founded Boltay project, a language and cultural exchange program and lead a major social – digital media project – “My Aliya Story”, which includes thousands of aliya stories of Russian speaking young adults, mostly women, who immigrated to Israel as children. During the pandemic Lena established and led volunteer headquarters “Israeli Solidarity in Russian” and recruited hundreds of young volunteers, mostly young women, empowering young women leadership, who assisted thousands of elderly Russian speaking Israelis all over the country. Lena’s social projects are widely covered by the Israeli media.