Judy Simon http://www.jta.org/user/profile/24431 en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Judaism has been a dynamic religion for 6,000 years, and it will continue to grow and change. Just as the Ashkenazi orthodox communities of the past had spin-off groups (conservative and reformed Judaism), so will the modern growing orthodox population spawn new spin-offs. They may not look like the conservative and reform movements as we know them, but there will be spin-off groups. The Jewish community never was and never will be homogeneous. There are things that connect all Jews, but not all Jewish communities are the same. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 To add yet another level of confusion, Sotomayor is a name that Sephardim and conversos used, so it could be that Sonia Sotomayor has Sephardic ancestry too. Thus, Cardozo and Sotomayor may both have ancestry going back to Iberia during the Inquisition. It is possible that around the same time Cardozo's ancestors fled the Inquisition to New York, Sotomayor's ancestors may have fled the Inquisition to Puerto Rico. From that point to the present, of course, the Cardozo and Sotomayor families' experiences differed from each other, but I think it is fair to say that both families have Sephardic roots. Whether you use the term "Hispanic" to define Cardozo depends on how you define the term, and it has have several definitions over the centuries. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hundreds at the rally? I was there; the crowd was in the thousands, not hundreds. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00