Thanks for posting this. I had never made the connection to Sotomayor's looks. Her mother was an orphan (presumably meaning don't know parents?) in the town of Lajas in rural PR. Lajas was a small town settled by Sephardic Jews from the Majorcan Islands (and some Castillian Jews). Sotomayor is very likely 50% genetically ethnically Jewish, while religiously a practicing Catholic.
That got glossed over in the 'first hispanic justice' story.