Jewish Pirate voted ‘sexiest politician’
Playboy survey honors Marina Weisband, although she quit her position with the German Pirate Party back in April
Raphael Ahren is a former diplomatic correspondent at The Times of Israel.
Marina Weisband resigned from political office more than half a year ago, but she’s still making steamy waves in Germany, where she was recently voted the country’s sexiest politician.
Nearly 30 percent of 1,000 respondents in a survey conducted by the German edition of Playboy magazine voted for the 25-year-old Weisband, who served as political director of Germany’s Pirate Party from May 2011 until April 2012, German news portal Bild.de reported Tuesday morning.
Born in Kiev, Weisband joined tens of thousands of other Russian-speaking Jews when she immigrated to Germany with her family in the 1990s. Although she decided to quit her position at the head of the Pirate Party to focus on her finishing her psychology degree, she continues to be an active and outspoken party member, remaining the German media’s go-to person for all things Pirate.
Last April, just weeks before Weisband announced her resignation, the party was set to become the Bundestag’s third largest force, garnering up to 12 percent of the popular vote in polls. Today, according to a recent survey, the Pirates would only get 4 percent, thus failing to pass the electoral threshold needed to enter parliament.
Weisband — who said she doesn’t keep kosher but goes to synagogue almost every Friday night — has never been to Israel but said she has made plans in the past. “My mother also keeps on raving about Israel and wants to send me there all the time,” she told The Times of Israel last year.
