Marina Solodkin
Marina SolodkinIsrael news photo: video archive

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has praised the 'good works' of former MK Marina Solodkin, who died over the weekend. "She was a principled representative of the people who was always attentive to Israelis' problems," Netanyahu said in a statement issued Sunday morning.

"In her humble and honest way she cared for citizens' welfare and especially tended to olim's problems. I liked and appreciated her and she'll be missed by all of us," the prime minister said. 

Kadima Chairman MK Shaul Mofaz issued a statement praising former party member and MK Marina Solodkin for her efforts on behalf of Israeli social justice.

Solodkin, who died of an apparent heart attack over the weekend in Latvia while attending a conference on anti-Semitism, was found dead in her hotel room Saturday evening. 

“I had the privilege of knowing and working beside her,” Mofaz wrote in a post on his Facebook page. “I knew her as an honest woman who dedicated her life to working for the general good, for equal opportunity and social justice.

“She loved the State of Israel and did as much as she could to make this wonderful country into a better place, more fair and just,” he added.

Hatnuah chairwoman Tzipi Livni called her a "true Zionist," one whose "door was open to everyone." Labor chairwoman Shelley Yechimovich likewise called her a "brilliant and extraordinary person," albeit commenting on her "sharp  tongue." Yechimovich, who once was a journalist, noted that Solodkin had "personally helped thousands of people and was a wonderful partner. The public lost a great parliamentarian, attentive to any distress and suffering." 

Solodkin made aliyah to Israel in the early 1990s, joining the Russian immigrant party ‘Yisrael B’Aliyah’ led by former dissident Natan Sharansky, and winning election to the Knesset in 1996.  As MK Solodkin chaired the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women. Following her re-election to the parliament in 1999, she was appointed deputy minister of Immigrant Absorption.

It was shortly before the 2006 elections that Solodkin resigned her post in order to join Kadima. She was again re-elected, this time from the sixth spot on the Kadima list, and elected once more in the 10th place on the list in 2009.