MK Shlomo Ngusa Molla is the former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and a Member of the Knesset on behalf of the Kadima Party and the Tnua Party. Molla was born and raised in Ethiopia, in a small Jewish village in Gondar province, to a family of nine brothers and two sisters. In 1982, he immigrated to Israel via Sudan at the age of 16 as part of Operation Brotherhood, after a 780-kilometer trek, during which he was captured by local authorities and imprisoned for several months. He served as chairman of the Ethiopian Student Organization and the Coordinator of Distressed Populations in the World Student Organization.

In 1991 he was appointed director of the Absorption Center in Tiberias. Later, Molla was appointed supervisor of immigration from Ethiopia and supervisor of the absorption centers and Hebrew language courses at kibbutzim in the north. As part of his job, he was responsible for the absorption of many immigrants who arrived as part of Operation Shlomo. Later, in 1998, he was appointed Commissioner for the Absorption of Ethiopian Immigrants in the Ministry of Absorption.

From 1999 to 2005, he was the director of the Ethiopian Immigrants Division in the Jewish Agency’s Department of Immigration and Absorption. In 2006, he was elected to head the Department of Zionist Institutions in the World Zionist Organization and as a member of the management of the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency.

He became a Knesset Member in February 2008. Molla has served as a member of the Knesset Committee, the Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee, the Committee for the Advancement of Women, the Special Committee on Public Appeals, and the Subcommittee on Combating Trafficking in Women. He was also an acting member of the Knesset Finance Committee. In addition, he served as chairman of the Lobby for Civil Equality and Pluralism and the Lobby for the Fight against Racism, and chairman of the Israel-Ethiopia Friendship Association. In 2011, he was appointed Deputy Speaker of the Knesset.