The journalist and author Naomi Levitsky passed away yesterday (Tuesday) at the age of 77. Levitsky, who started her career in the 1980s as a journalist for the weekly “Tutara Rashat”, quickly became famous as an in-depth investigator who is not afraid to touch on controversial issues with political and social implications. After the closing of the weekly, in 1988, Levitsky began writing for the newspaper “Hadhot” and then for “Yediot Ahronoth”, where her investigations focused on the political system and the security system. At the same time as her journalistic writing, Levitsky wrote non-fiction books, including “Dignity” – a biography of Judge Aharon Barak, “The Supremes: Inside the Supreme Court”, as well as an autobiography entitled “Bad Girl”. She also served as a lecturer in the academic track of the College of Management.
Levitsky, born in Transylvania, was born Elizabeth Spitz. Her father was murdered by the communist regime in Romania only a few months after her birth, and at the age of two she immigrated to Israel with her mother. She served in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, and before she turned to the press, she served as an emissary of the Jewish press in the United States. At the same time as she worked in the press, Levitsky presented the current affairs program “Knowledgeable Sources” on Channel One, but she was fired from it after six months, and following a lawsuit she filed against the broadcasting leadership, she was finally compensated, in a compromise agreement, in the amount of more than NIS 300,000. Among her outstanding journalistic achievements were an investigation into the circumstances of the execution of gallows inmate Dov Gruner and the disclosure of the Cairo Agreement between Prime Minister Rabin and then PLO leader Yasser Arafat (in which the establishment of a self-governing Palestinian government was discussed for the first time).
Levitsky said in interviews that in an attempt to help achieve a peace agreement with Syria as well, she secretly mediated between the Israeli government (Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres) and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and that for this purpose she had the help of a Syrian journalist.
Levitsky, who suffered from a persistent heart disease, was a prominent left-wing activist, although her health did not allow her to participate in protest actions in recent years. She died as a result of a serious illness. After she was diagnosed, she invited Mukiri Zechara to come and say goodbye to her at a Zoom event, in which senior academic and legal officials took part, who reiterated that her journalistic and documentary writing had a great impact on the status of the legal system in the eyes of the public in Israel.
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