Ami Dror | Civil Society and Protest in Israel

Ami Dror is an Israeli entrepreneur, educator, activist and author. Born in Ashkelon, he comes from a family with a Holocaust history; his father survived persecution as a Romanian Jew. He was active in the Jewish youth movement Bnei Akiva. He began his career as a tank commander in the IDF and then joined the Shin Bet’s Personal Security Service. From 2000 to 2003, he worked for the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Dublin and Marseille.

In 2005, Dror founded XpanD 3D, whose 3D cinema technology was used by James Cameron for Avatar. In 2014, he founded Zaitoun Ventures, an impact investment fund that required portfolio companies to have at least 30% of their workforce from underrepresented groups. In 2016, Dror moved to Shanghai and founded LeapLearner, a coding learning platform for children. In 2018, he was recognised by the Shanghai Media Group as one of China’s ten most brilliant entrepreneurs. Through LeapLearner, he helped set up programming schools for young people in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Kenya. In 2022, he founded BriBooks, a platform where children can write, publish and sell their own books. BriBooks was named one of the 100 most promising technology companies in the world by Red Herring.

In 2014, Dror became a fellow of the Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute; since 2018, he has led leadership seminars in Aspen and at Harvard University. In 2019, he co-published a book on raising innovative children from a Jewish and Chinese perspective.

Civil society activism

From January 2023, Dror became a leading figure in the protest movement against the Netanyahu government’s judicial reforms. He led rallies, appeared as a speaker across the country and organised a mass march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in July 2023 against the planned law restricting the proportionality clause. He sued a Likud activist who had published the contact details of protest leaders and was briefly arrested by the police in August 2023. After the Hamas attack in October 2023, Dror focused his efforts on humanitarian aid and supported organisations such as Brothers and Sisters for Israel and Women Building an Alternative. On 6 January 2026, Dror announced that he would be joining the Democratic Party of Israel, thus taking the step from civil society activism to formal political participation.

Ami Dror will be joining the event online.

An event organised by the Fritz Bauer Forum.