His mother was a Holocaust survivor who had been sheltered by a Lithuanian family after escaping Nazi captivity in the Ninth Fort.
[4] In Israel, Kalmanovich became active in the Israeli Labor Party, worked in the Government Press Office, and as a parliamentary aide in the Knesset.
[5] His government positions gave him access to information about Nativ, an Israeli liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries.
He made contact with Knesset members, and hosted cabinet ministers at lavish parties at his villa in a wealthy Tel Aviv neighborhood.
His frequent trips to the Soviet Union and East Germany had aroused the suspicion of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency.
[4] According to one theory, he was only made a scapegoat for information from Jonathan Pollard that had been willingly shared by Israel with the Soviets in order to secure the release of certain Jewish scientists in the USSR.
[2] Kalmanovich had close connections with all sorts of Russian businessmen,[citation needed] one of whom, Vyacheslav Ivankov, was killed in Moscow on October 9, 2009.
On November 2, 2009, Kalmanovich was assassinated by unknown gunmen in a passing Lada Priora vehicle as he was sitting in his car, a Mercedes S500, in Moscow.
Vladimir Markin, of the investigative committee of Russia's procurator, argued that the event was the result of a "contract-style crime" and that the murder was probably "linked to his business activities".