OCTOBER 13 • 2022 | 37

S

ara Kirsch wanted to 
make aliyah to Israel 
for career purposes. 
At the time, she was teaching 
high school in China and 
taught high school in Korea 
as well. Still, something was 
missing for the Birmingham-
born teacher, who attended 
Temple Israel and Tamarack 
Camps growing up.

“I wanted to work in 
Israeli high-tech,” Kirsch, 
32, explains. Israel is a world 
leader in the high-tech indus-
try. She had also previously 
visited the country three 
times. Kirsch says she was 
drawn to the “ecosystem and 
the number of opportunities 
there are for native English 
speakers.”

After living in Asia for five 
years, Kirsch packed up her 
belongings and made aliyah to 
Israel in 2017. She had no job 
and no real glimpse of where 
she could fit into the high-
tech world.
“I had a lot of people tell 
me that with just teaching 
experience and with my 
background, that I wouldn’t 
find a job,” she recalls. Kirsch 
had focused mostly on social 
studies, debate, U.S. history, 
economics and psychology in 
teaching. “I was afraid, but I 
still decided to pursue it.”

BUILDING A CAREER
Kirsch built her career in 
Israeli high-tech from the 
ground-up. She spent her first 
five months in Haifa, com-
pleting Ulpan, an immersive 
Hebrew language learning 
program. 
Then, she began applying 
for jobs and landed a role 
working in pay-per-click digi-
tal advertising, or PPC. Kirsch 
accepted her first job in Tel 
Aviv as a content writer at 
Smartlify, a PPC digital adver-

tising agency.
“I found an industry and a 
vertical that I was really tal-
ented in,” she explains. “After 
about six months at my first 
job, I was promoted to be a 
manager. I made most of the 
companies I worked for a lot 
of money, and I really loved 
it.”
Still, the growth didn’t come 
without challenges. Navigating 
the cultural change proved 
difficult, since Kirsch says 
Asian culture tends to be very 
soft, while Israeli culture is 
very direct. “I was also prob-
ably the only native English 
speaker at most of my jobs, 
which was good and bad.”
Kirsch lived in Israel for six 
years and worked with four 
Israeli companies. She also 
volunteered with different 
teaching and tech organiza-
tions. In just a few short years, 
she quickly grew to become 
one of the only American 
females in a leadership posi-
tion in her industry in Tel 
Aviv.
In 2020, Kirsch also 
launched a blog called Israel 

Meet Sara Kirsch, 
who recently 
returned home 
to Birmingham.

Israeli 
High-Tech 
Leader

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

NEXT DOR
VOICE OF A NEW GENERATION

Sara Kirsch 
speaking at the 
Serling Event

Sara 
Kirsch at 
the Dead 
Sea.

continued on page 38

