Sofa Landver

Sofa Landver was born in 1949 in Saint Petersburg

Landver was born in Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, in the Soviet Union, to Haya and Hirsh Landver. She immigrated to Israel in 1979 and settled in Ashdod. She holds a master's degree in speech therapy.

From 1989 to 1996 she sat on the Ashdod city council and on the board of the Ashdod Development Company. She was also known as the Russian teacher of Shimon Peres.

She entered the Knesset for the Labor Party in 1996 and was a deputy speaker in the 15th Knesset. In 2002 she served briefly as Deputy Minister of Transportation and initiated a law to build a hospital in Ashdod. She lost her seat in 2003 and returned briefly in 2006.

She joined Yisrael Beiteinu and was elected on its list in 2006. In 2009 she became Minister of Immigrant Absorption, a post she held until 2015 and again from 2016 to 2018. The ministry was renamed the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration in 2017.

She retired from politics after she was left off the party list for the April 2019 election. She was a delegate to the 38th World Zionist Congress in 2020 and left the party in 2021. She lives in Ashdod, is widowed and has one daughter.