[cookcounty]

""Sephardim" are Jews of Spanish or Portugese extraction, which "Ashenazim" are typically of eastern European extraction."

Uh, ...almost. Sephardim are Jews from Spain, Portugal, plus the Arab world (which includes a lot of Jews, most of whom now live in Israel).

The best way to remember the Ashkenazim / Sephardim division is to look at a map of the world at the maximum extent of the muslim conquest of Europe (722 AD). The areas that were muslim at that time are where the Sephardic Jews came from, the rest is Ashkenazic.

My wife is from Morocco and Sephardic, that's how I come to know about this stuff. It's 2 lines of tradition that evolved somewhat in isolation from each other due to the lack of communicatiion between the "oriental" and "occidental" worlds.

[MarkL]

I guess my point was that given the distinction that the arab writer is making, and the idea that a "civil war" is brewing between the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel, that this guy is vying for "Baghdad Bob's" job of "Minister of Wishful Thinking."

Mark