Hannah Kim


Hannah Kim is an Israeli journalist.

Biography

Hannah Kim was born in Haifa and graduated from Hugim High School in Haifa. Served in the Israel Defense Forces during the years 1976–1978 in the National Communication Battalion. She holds a BA in Hebrew and general literature, history of the Jewish people, history of the jand of Israel, general history, and film and art history at the Tel Aviv University.

Journalism and literary career

In 1978 she began working as a journalist for Al HaMishmar, first as a correspondent for Tel Aviv and later as a political writer. Following the death of Simeon Joshua in Kfar Shalem, Tel Aviv, who was shot by a policeman after barricaded on the roof of his house, following the construction crime which he committed – she has published a series of investigative reports on building violations, which were committed by Avraham Shapira, Leon Recanati, Rami Ungar and Rehavam Ze'evi, Chairman of Eretz Israel Museum. Following the recent investigation, Ze'evi was banned from entering the museum, and the journalists' association condemned it.
She published children's stories in Mishmar LeYeledim, edited by Shlomo Nitzan. One of the children's stories she wrote was dramatized and broadcast in Kol Yisrael.
She revealed new documents from the Israeli Foreign Ministry archives. shedding light on the missed opportunity for peace between Israel and Egypt, two years before the Suez Crisis.
In 1986 she began working for the newspaper Ha'ir. In this year, for the first time, she published the peace initiative of Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, about two years before the Suez Crisis, which sent an emissary on his behalf to President Gamal Abdel Nasser to reach a peace agreement with Egypt.
She revealed the scope of trade between Israel and South Africa, and her article was quoted in The Washington Post.
She published discoveries about the economic ties between Israel and the Soviet Union, which included steel imports, despite the severing of relations between the two countries.
She made a first publication about a weapons deal between Israel and Iran, a year before the Iran–Contra affair, in which the chairman of the Israel Aerospace Industries Mordechai Hod, and the Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's contacts in Iran were involved.
Her article was published about the trade relations between Israel and the Arab countries, in which transactions were exposed between Israel and Libya, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Morocco.
She held an interview with the Dominican Republic's Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, in which she spoke about the United States invasion of Grenada.
She revealed Yitzhak Shamir's letter to George P. Shultz on 14 January 1988, a letter which accelerated Schultz's peace initiative in the Middle East.
She exposed the contacts and the mutual messages between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, a long time before the mutual recognition.
In November 1989 she wrote and edited then The Hammer, a monthly magazine for social affairs. She was active in the homeless movement which was established that year, in which its activity tents were established throughout the country, mainly in the neighborhoods.
About a year later, she began working for Hadashot, until it was closed in 1993. She was a reporter for party affairs, and demanded to change the term of her position as a "Political Reporter", a term which has been rooted ever since.
In Hadashot, she founded the weekly supplement "Pressure", which she edited, for social and economic affairs. In the supplement, investigations were published about homeless children in Israel, malnutrition in neighborhoods and development towns, manifestations of racism against Ethiopian immigrants and poverty in the ultra Orthodox and the Arab sectors. For her work, she won a citation from the Sokolov Award.
In Hadashot she published how Shimon Sheves, the director general of the Israeli Prime Minister's office, was appointed by Oren Shachor from the rank of a corporal to a captain, as well as a first comprehensive investigation of Benjamin Netanyahu, in which Bibi's millionaires' club was first published, with the names of its donors. She published an interview with the millionaire Gabi Tamman, who said: "Bibi is my race horse".
In 1994 she began working for Haaretz and published a political-social-economic column. She published weekly articles on the articles' page, and focused on the rule of law, the independence of the judicial system, and the preservation of the integrity of senior government officials, as well as the connection between capital and governing.
In Haaretz, she published revelations about the wars of the Shin Bet on Congo's soil, involving the head of the Shin Bet Head Office and some senior Shin Bet officials, who built the ruling army in front of the opposing army. She made the initial publication of the increased pensions of Arthur Israelovitz and Giora Eini, senior members of the Histadrut, and the increased pension of Shimon Sheves, as well as the first computer kits in the "Computer for Every Child" project, intended for needy children, were given to the two children of the Prime Minister Netanyahu. She published the first article on the opinion page of Haaretz in favor of an employee strike in the economy. In 2004, she left the newspaper Haaretz.
She has published many articles which inspired the 2011 Israeli social justice protests, and presented an economic thought which was considered unpopular at the time, against the privatization of the state resources and for the continued existence of a welfare state. She was one of the founders of the "Social Guard in the Knesset" and the "Israel is Expensive for Us" group, which worked against the cost of living in Israel.
Prior to the elections to the nineteenth Knesset, she published on her Facebook page a series of notes and documents which were written by Netanyahu, and illuminated his work and his opinion of those around him.
She has also published poems in the literary supplement of Yedioth Ahronoth.

Awards and recognition

She was awarded the Quality Knight Award of the year 1999 for Communication and Journalism. The reasons for the award were:
"In her journalistic work, Mrs. Hanna Kim discovered the required qualities of a professional, honest, warrior and ethical journalist. A meticulous collection of material from the field, cross-referencing, verification of the material and the presentation to the reader in the clearest and the most fluent manner, characterize her work throughout her professional career. In the course of her work, she covered various areas of Israeli social and political life: the exposure of concealed arms deals, and wrongs which caused to weak sectors of society such as immigrants, minorities and foreign workers. Particularly worthy of mention of her journalistic achievements in the expression and treatment of politics and the rule of law. In these areas, she demonstrated determination, courage and helped the readers understand the Israeli reality in its essence, despite the illusions of the politicians".
In 2009 she founded, together with a group of parents, the Harim School in Giv'at Ada for students from the autistic spectrum. She is a member of the Audit Committee of the Association for Legal guardian which was established by parents and public figures to look after the future of helpless autistic people.
She was one of the leaders of the protest against the government corruption and for equality before the law. She organized and led the demonstrations in Petah Tikva, near the home of Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, and then the mass demonstrations which were begun in Tel Aviv. She opened the first demonstration in Tel Aviv with a speech which called on the Israelis to find a leader who would be a beacon, one masterpiece, and abandon their leaders accused of corruption. At that demonstration, Prof. Uzi Arad joined, and was introduced by Kim as a partner of moving the protest from Petah Tikva to Tel Aviv, as they had talked six months prior to the move.
As a mother of two children with autism, she took part in the struggle of Disabled Israelis for a minimum wage, and blocked vehicle traffic in Tel Aviv near Azrieli Center and in Jerusalem near the Knesset.
Kim was a member of the Me Too movement, and wrote in her Facebook page about two men who sexually harassed her. On 17 October 2018 Kim told Keren Neubach that she was harassed by Haim Ramon and by Dan Margalit.