"I am not dead yet," she wrote about two months ago: Journalist Orit Galili-Zucker has passed away
Former Haaretz journalist, researcher, and political consultant who worked over the years with Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, has passed away at the age of 70. In June, she revealed that her cancer was in an advanced stage and wrote that she had begun a "process of parting."
Former journalist, researcher, and political consultant Dr. Orit Galili-Zucker passed away on Sunday after a battle with cancer. Galili-Zucker, 70, was for years a well-known figure in the world of media, academia, and political consulting in Israel. Among other things, she worked alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Just about two months ago, Galili-Zucker revealed in a personal post that the cancer she was suffering from was in an advanced stage and that she was beginning, in her words, a "process of parting." In the post, which received hundreds of responses, she shared that her attending physician had discussed with her the final stages of the disease and the decisions she would be required to make.
Galili-Zucker then asked the public to assist her in an attempt to reach medical trials abroad or to receive "compassionate use" drugs, in the hope that these could grant her additional time. Alongside the practical request, she reached out to people she had met throughout her life and asked them to send her shared memories and tell her about their encounters with her.
After the post sparked a large wave of responses, she published a clarification the next day in which she wrote that she was still alive, despite her difficult condition.
"I am not dead yet," she wrote then, explaining that there was a gap between how she looked and the advanced stage of her illness. According to her, the love and appreciation she received from the public gave her the strength to continue the struggle.
Galili-Zucker was born in Jerusalem in 1956 and began her professional path as a parliamentary assistant to Knesset member Ora Namir. In the early 80s, she joined the Schocken network, and later worked for about 16 years at the newspaper Haaretz, where she held a series of senior writing and editing positions. After leaving journalism, she turned to the academic world and political consulting.
She held a doctorate in political science, and over the years taught at Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa, and the Hebrew University. Her areas of activity and research included political leadership, political communication, election systems, and the impact of changes in the media world on politics.
In the political arena, Galili-Zucker served as a strategic consultant for the Labor Party and Ehud Barak, and in 2011 she joined Benjamin Netanyahu's team and headed the political communication team of the Likud chairman. She held the position for about two years, until 2013, and afterwards continued to engage in consulting and research in the field of communication and politics.
In one of the last posts in which she addressed her illness, Galili-Zucker wrote about the feeling that she was ending her life without having managed to give everything she wanted, but also about the clarity that the struggle had given her:
"This ability to distill thoughts into full clarity is the gift that cancer gave me."
