Black Jews in Israel

Here is a fascinating post at Daily Kos describing just how varied the Jews in Israel actually are.

It never occurred to me that all those within its borders were not like the Jews I knew from Brooklyn. It also didn’t occur to me that not all Israelis were Ashkenazim. My parents’ leftist friends were also white, but secular.  ...

Over a decade later in 1984, I had an atheist sabra as a roommate, and learned yet another facet of what an Israeli was or wasn’t. She grew up on a kibbutz, was raised non-religious and left Israel after doing her military service, angry about the presence of and tolerance for Haredi Jews by the state. ...

Much—or at least most—of the discussion of Israel in the U.S. tends to be polarizing (against or for), and is also about what we call the I/P debate—Israel/Palestine. Rarely do we examine the internal contractions within Israeli society, which is not a monolith or homogeneous. Israel’s population demographics are complicated not just by Jewish (and who qualifies as a Jew) vs. not Jewish, but also by diversity within Judaism.

The Black Panthers of Israel, a polygamous sect named African Hebrew Israelites founded by an African American and Ethiopian Jews are discussed. 

Why do the COGs seem so content to live in ignorance of these things in exchange for their simplistic script? Since when did they ever bothered to discuss such things with their followers? Since when did they ever bother to notice these things?