Marina Solodkin, a Russian-Israeli politician and former MK for Yisrael Baaliyah, Likud and Kadima, was found dead of heart failure in her hotel room in Latvia Saturday evening.
Born in Moscow in the Soviet Union, Solodkin received a PhD in economic and social history at Moscow State University. She made aliyah to Israel in the early 1990s.
She joined the Russian-immigrant party, Yisrael Baaliyah, led by former dissident Natan Sharansky. She was elected to the Knesset in the 1996 elections on the party’s list and chaired the Committee on the Status of Women. After retaining her seat in the 1999 elections, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Immigrant Absorption.
Shortly before the 2006 elections Solodkin resigned from the Knesset in order to join Kadima. She gained 6th place on the party’s list and was re-elected.
She retained her seat in the 2009 elections after being placed tenth on Kadima’s list. She announced that she would not be running for the 19th Knesset when it became clear that Kadima would not be able to gain more than a handful of MKs in the elections.
She wrote on her Facebook page Friday, “In a few hours’ time I will take off for Latvia in order to take part in a conference I was invited to by the Latvian Committee against Fascism… Lately, Neo-Nazism is raising its ugly head in eastern Europe, in the post-Soviet states We must remain vigilant.”
